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Published: February 9th 2016
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My shower had no hot water. No. Hot. Water. I had a repair person come and he informed me the shower tap was broken. He kindly wrote down what kind of tap I needed to buy, told me to call him when I had purchased it, and left. But that night the shower worked as usual. I bought a new tap but decided to wait it out. Maybe the tap wasn’t broken. Maybe it just had a glitch. Do taps have glitches? Apparently, they do.
For quite a while the shower carried on working normally and I had nearly forgotten the still-in-the-box tap sitting in my hallway. That is, until it stopped working again just a few days before the biggest holiday of the year: Spring Festival, a.k.a. Chinese New Year. My Chinese is okay but I still have a lot of trouble understanding it on the phone. So with the help of my wonderful manager I was able to get another repairman in to change the tap. He came on the only the day off I had that week, spent an hour trying to find the main water shut-off valve (even though I pointed to it several times and told him it was broken) before ‘finding’ it and telling me it was broken (gee, ya think?) and that he couldn’t change the tap until I had the building’s management repair the shut-off. Oh, joy.
I texted my landlord (in Chinese) to tell him about the situation. We texted back and forth several times and finally he said he would get someone and let me know. The following morning, without warning, a man knocked on my door and said he was here to change the tap. He managed to stem the flow of water enough to change the tap. He then matter-of-factly said the tap wasn’t the problem. He told me the water heater was broken, that it was receiving no power, could not be repaired, and needed to be replaced. He charged me nothing for the service but did take the old (but not broken) tap for himself.
Now, I worked pretty hard to get my Chinese to a fairly functional level. But how on earth do I start talking about water heaters? My manager came to my rescue once again. When my texting failed she called my landlord for me to explain everything and relay what he wanted me to do. I didn’t have any more days off that week and every day I had to work 1pm to 9pm. My landlord told me he could have the new heater delivered in the morning but the installer was only available in the afternoon. He wouldn’t be able to arrange the installation until after the holiday. Faced with nearly two weeks of taking ‘sink baths,’ I asked when the heater would be delivered. “Tomorrow morning. Maybe the next day.”
The following morning I got up early and waited. Nothing. The next morning I got up early and waited. At 9:30am there was a knock at the door. A man with a kind face and two tool bags entered and said he was here to replace the water heater. Umm……
“The water heater hasn’t arrived yet.”
I called my landlord and handed the phone to Mr. Toolbags. They discussed whatever it was they needed to discuss then Mr. T handed the phone back to me. My landlord began speaking so rapidly I couldn’t even parse out a single word. I asked him to speak slower. He acknowledged my request but continued his speed-of-light monologue. I repeated my original request. He sighed and suddenly there was someone else on the phone, someone who spoke a bit of English.
“Hello. Your landlord says he’s very sorry. He ordered the wrong water heater. Your water heater is inside. He ordered one for outside. He needs to cancel the first order and order the right one. It will not come until after the holiday.”
“Okay. I understand. But the installer is in my apartment. What do I do with him?”
“The water heater will come after the holiday.”
“I understand that. But there is a man in my apartment right now. What do I do?”
“Because the first heater is wrong, the new one will come later.”
“…….ummmm…..”
While I was having this completely useless conversation, Mr. T was back in the bathroom making quite a lot of noise. I walked to the bathroom (still in the midst of my ‘conversation’ with Mr. ImayspeakEnglishabit) and I see Mr. T examining everything around the heater. He looks at me and says, “You’re heater isn’t broken. It is this that is broken.” and he gestures towards the two taps below the heater.
So I put him back on the phone and when he handed it back Mr. ImayspeakEnglishabit says, “Okay, he can fix it. It will cost 230RMB, okay?” I knew I was being overcharged, but it was near the holiday and I just wanted a working shower. I agreed.
Mr. T was great. He spoke slowly and clearly so that I could understand him and patiently repeated himself when necessary. It only took him 25 minutes to replace the two taps. TA-DAH! Working hot water. I paid him, wished him a very happy new year and he left.
Not five minutes after Mr. T left there was another knock on the door. I opened the door thinking Mr. T had forgotten something, but no. A delivery man pushed a box towards me and turned without a word. It was a water heater. *sigh*
Now, aside from the comedic value of this story, there is a valuable lesson I would like to impart to anyone who has ever considered living abroad. To survive in a foreign environment, it is absolutely essential to let go of any rigid ideas of “how things should be done.” “Our way is right. Their way is wrong.” This mentality has been the downfall of many a foreigner in China. Perhaps, in some situations, their way is wrong. But, in order to maintain some semblance of sanity when you experience situations such as I have described in this post, you have to tell yourself “I’m not in Kansas anymore.” And sometimes you have to skip down the Yellow Brick Road before you can have a hot shower again.
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