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Published: January 13th 2010
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Pizza
They give you gloves to eat it with... ...as in sometimes i feel like i'm a misfit here and sometimes i wish everyone would just leave me alone. i guess nothing really brought on a statement like that- i'm just stressed out thinking about all the unpleasant things that await me back home in the US.
paid our water bill for the last 3 months. actually, i didn't realize it was due until i went to brush my teeth this morning and only a trickle came out of the faucet. wei investigated and realized that we hadn't paid the water bill. (i guess the water company doesn't tape your bill to your door like the electric company.) anyway, 3 months of water cost us.... 13.9 RMB. this is despite my daily shower-till-the-hot-water-runs-out routine. woohoo.... that's like 60 some cents per month US.
went "downtown" (not sure what else to call it) looking for some gifts to take back to amber, angie, and everyone else. came back with nothing, ordered in dinner which cost 33 RMB (tomato and egg dish, cabbage dish, spicy pork, and rice). they sent the pork in a ceramic serving plate and told us to leave the plate outside the door after we were
Breadbox
I think they really meant it when they said it was a "box of bread". done, that they would swing by and pick it up. funny. delivery ppl seem so nice- like the papa john's pizza delivery guy that offered to take out our trash for us, all in a country that doesn't tip. ahhhhh...... well, that was it for our day. i think we're both going stir-crazy.
things that i'm getting used to about china:
1. the insane driving. now i can ride my geoby bike with the rest of 'em. i just cross when someone else crosses, haha. i don't know why they bother having lights and stuff... ppl drive as they please, pay no attention to lines on the road, and lay on the horn (in china, the horn seems to just mean "let's go" or "hey, look out" as opposed to the american translation of "wtf do you think you are you doing" "learn to drive, asshole" etc).
2. the littering. here, it's actually true that "someone else will pick it up".
3. the way that ppl dress. i ordered some little girl-type ribbon shoes myself, thank you... although i still don't think i want to wear a teddy bear print at my age.
4. the food. i'm less suspicious
Geoby bike
I'd love to ride this in America. of weird things, although i still won't eat fatty meat, duck, chicken feet, etc. etc. (come on... give me credit, i ate my first two mangosteen today after finding out they were initially selling them for $45/lb in NYC!)
things i don't think i'll ever get used to:
1. hands down, i still want to get sick when i see kids doing their bathroom business on the road. the thought i might step in it makes me constantly keep my eyes on the sidewalk whereever i go. wei says it's not good for the kids to have to sit in a dirty diaper... i say it's not good for the rest of the public to have human waste all over the place.
2. the squat toilets. i'm getting better at holding it all day. really, i'm not THAT obsessive-compulsive-- but the odor, the fact that there's no soap at the sinks (if there is a sink at all)... no thanks, i'll skip it and remember to drink less soda.
3. speaking of drinking, that brings me to #3.... drinking hot water. i remember reading somewhere that if you accidentally ingest certain kinds of poison, you should drink lots of very warm water as it has an emetic effect. not so for the chinese. they drink hot water all the time in cold weather, just plain, tea leaves optional. also, sometimes at restaurants i'll order a coke, and they'll ask: heated or not? o_O
4. people staring. sometimes it amuses me, sometimes i want to claw their eyes out.
tomorrow, i have to remember to get my rx at the pharmacy. wait, who am i kidding- my american rx is otc here. :P now that i'm on the topic, this is what i meant about taking more personal responsibility. in america, everything is regulated and as idiot-proof as possible as we are a very litigious society. in china, there is much more focus on personal responsibility. for example, in america, we can't buy most types of fireworks as they have the potential to cause bodily injury to ourselves and others. in china, you can launch whatever fireworks you please at your own risk and it's your fault if you take out your eye lighting the fuse (or your fault if your curiosity got the best of you and you got in the way of the guy lighting the fuse). which is the "right" way? i don't know, and i am not going to wax political. but at the very least, i have respect for both POVs and it's interesting to see the differences in societal attitude.
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