New PC OS

Hey all,

Just wanted to leave a quick message and let you know that I’m using a new OS (for my parents, that means Operating System )
on my desktop.  I finally got an ethernet aDSL modem and was able to
start playing with Ubuntu Linux.  I went for the latest version, Hardy
Heron (ver. 8.04) and I’ve got to say, this beta is much better than
WinXP’s SP2.



Anyway, I’m ok here in China.  Too far from Tibet I guess .  Hope everyone’s doing good and having a good spring.

Take it easy.

my experience purchasing a cell phone on my own

I went shopping for a new cell phone the other day and I did it alone (some people think I’m incapable of doing anything by myself here).  So, I was looking for the Nokia N95 8GB cuz it has lots of really cool features.  I found one and talked the sales people down from over 5500RMB to 3000RMB yay for me.  I forgot something my parents told me a long time ago… if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. 

Today, I went out again to get a package my parents sent me and to get 2 photos printed (for my visa renewal) and Celina called me.  I answered the phone and just had dead air.  So, I hung up and she called back… the only way I could talk her was on speaker phone.  So, encouraged by my recent success in bargaining, I thought I would go back and get the phone replaced.  That was easy. One of the girls behind the counter spoke a little English, so I told her it was broken and she used it to try and call her own cell phone to confirm, then she went and grabbed me a different one.  Now, this time, I did remember something I was told a long time ago… if something breaks, get it replaced.  If the replacement breaks, get your money back… The second phone they brought out wouldn’t power on.  They tried 3 different batteries, the phone just wouldn’t turn on.  The girl started to go grab another and I just told her I want my money back.  She started to argue with me, but I just stood there with a blank look on my face (she was trying to argue with me in Chinese) and said "Bu ming bai" (I don’t understand).  Then her manager started to argue with me, again, blank look and "Bu ming bai."  I was starting to draw a little attention, because I was standing in front of their stall for about 25 minutes at this point and people always look to see what the "laowai" (foreigner) is doing.  And, though most of them probably couldn’t understand me, I’m sure they could understand the manager telling me whatever he was telling me.  This is when the manager went away and came back and said a lot of words, the only part of which I understood was "liang chian" (two thousand).  At this, I pulled the receipt out of my pocket and pointed at it and said "san chian" (three thousand).  I had guessed right, he was trying to give me 2,000RMB back for the phone to get me to leave.  He said "liang chian" again, and I just said "san chian."  When I said this, I also sat down… kind of to emphasize that I wasn’t going anywhere without the 3,000RMB I paid for the phone.  I don’t think I was being unreasonable, I only had the phone for 3 days.  If something doesn’t last more than 3 days, then the offered replacement doesn’t make it out of the box, I don’t want it.

The manager said something to me really long, I didn’t understand any of it (at this point, I wasn’t even trying to anymore) and just said "san chian."  He walked away again, came back with a lady who opened a safe and counted out 3,000RMB for me.  I said "xie xie" (thank you) and went back to doing what I was doing before.

I think the only reason I got my money back, and Celina agrees, is that:

a) I am a foreigner and foreigners draw a lot of attention in this city.
b) I didn’t understand much that was said to me and I absolutely refused to leave without my money.

Let’s chalk this one up to dumb, blind luck and keep it at that.

Somebody must have finally heard me

One day after posting that last message about not having any water, it snowed, it snowed a lot.  I think we ended up with 2 or 3 inches of snow (that’s quite a bit for here) and some ice as well.  I work with some people from the Philippines and Singapore, a few of them had never seen snow before.  It was so much fun to be part of their first "winter wonderland" experience.  We had some snowball fights and they took lots of pictures.  Other than that, not much else is going on.  I’m going through some pretty intensive training at work (when I say intensive, I mean I have to learn a lot of really boring stuff in a very short period of time).  Later today, I am going to play some basketball with some of my coworkers.  Desktop versus Portable, it’s going to be the game of the century and the talk of water holes everywhere   plus, the winner gets bragging rights until we play again.  I have been having some trouble sleeping lately.  I’ve had to go in early to work a few times (for before mentioned training) and it seems to have my sleeping regime all screwed up.  Oh well, wouldn’t be the first time I’ve went through this and it probably won’t be the last.  At least I got about 3 hours of sleep today (to go with the 3 hours I got yesterday).

Oh ya, by the way, my apartment now has running water once more.  It came back the same day it snowed.

Water update

December 16, 2007 in the very early AM.  That is the last day and time there was enough water in this apartment to take a shower, wash a loud of laundry, do the dishes.  Today is January 7, 2008.  That makes today the 23rd day we’ve went without water.  Dishes are still piled high, clothes, too.  This is going to sound growse to some of you, but I have had 2 showers in 23 days.  I have washed 4 loads of laundry in 23 days (for those of you who know me well, you will know that is well below the usual 1 or 2 loads that I like to do everyday).  We found out what the hang up has been.  The city water department and our buildings maintenance department spent the first 16 days arguing over who’s responsibility it should be to fix it.  Since then, our landlord has called our maintenance department everyday and everyday they have told him that they will fix it tomorrow.  There have now been 7 "… we’ll fix it tomorrow…" statements and 7 no shows on the part of the maintenance department.  I’m starting to wonder, who in the hell do I have to slip a little red envelope to (bribe), to get some running water around here.  I have a feeling that is what they are waiting for.  The old lady that lives next to us said the same thing happened to her and her husband some years back and they went a long time (she didn’t say how long, but she put a heavy long stress on the "long") without water and everyone who was affected essentially had to pool some money together and pay someone to fix the problem.  That’s not right, but, at this point, I’m willing to consider all options.

Waterless

Well, 9 is the current magic number.  We have been without water in our apartment for 9 days now.  The water lines for this building are real screwy.  Each building has 4 units and each unit has 5 apartments in it.  This is the screwy part, rooms 1 on floors 1 to 7 all have the same incoming water line, rooms 2 on floors 1 to 7 all have the same incoming water line, and so on and so forth.  It just so happens that my room is number 3 and the water line broke in room number 3 on the first floor.  It didn’t completely break, because I can still flush the toilet, if I let it sit for about 1 hour without touching it, but the only water we have to wash with, cook with and clean with is our drinking water (which is delivered whenever we need it).  It also happens that the people living in the first floor apartment 3 are assholes.  Yes, their water pressure decreased (as you go higher, the water pressure gets worse; we have a trickle, floor 7 has nothing), and they had to notice some moisture on their floors, but they didn’t say anything, even when asked, because they had water and that is all that is important to them.  For 9 days I’ve been taking a shower out of a bowl, brushing my teeth out of a glass of water, and eating at nearly every restaurant in our area.  Our landlord told us that it would get fixed today, evidently, nobody told the repair men.  I really like our new landlord, we told her that we didn’t have any water and she called the maintenance department and brought us 2 more 5-gallon bottles of drinking water.  Our last landlord didn’t want to do anything when we needed it.  They just said, call and get it done, we will reimburse you later, then they fought with us over the reimbursement.  I usually hate the sight of repair men coming into the building, it generally means that I’m not going to get much sleep because of the drilling and hammering that always follows their appearance.  Today, I couldn’t wait to just catch a glimpse of one.  Tomorrow is Christmas and it looks to be one without water.  There are public showers I could go to, but I’d rather not.  I would rather take a shower in my own apartment, an apartment that I am being grossly over-charged for, an apartment that is good for nothing except sleeping, tv, internet and a place to keep my stuff.  In the last 9 days, I’ve eaten McDonalds at least 3 times, KFC once, and 2 other little restaurants once each, I usually only go out to eat 1 time a week at the most.  In addition, I’ve been buying the meals from work about every other night and eating leftovers from the restaurants the other nights.  I haven’t been able to do any laundry in 9 days, there is a huge pile forming in the bedroom.  There are dirty dishes in the sink where the grime and grease is just solidifying into an unwashable mass.  Ok, sorry for the complaining.  Let me tell you why it is taking so long to get this fixed.  Since the broken pipe is under the first floors apartment, the old couple told the maintenance crew that they could not fix the pipe unless they repaired any damage they did to their floor afterwards.  The repair men had to go back to the maintenance office to get approval for this (WTF!!!).  The maintenance office could not approve that expense (WTF!!!) so they had to go to their city office.  The city office could not approve this expenditure either (sigh), so they had to seek permission from the city government’s maintenance department (yay, red tape and bribery).  We were told that since it was not the entire unit (remember, just apartments 3 on all floors), it wasn’t going to be so easy to get approval.  If it had been the entire unit, it would have been fixed the second day (W T F!!!!!!!!!!!!).  We were told that we would have to negotiate with the people in the first floor apartment to get it fixed.  Negotiate what, I have no idea, but my question is WHY?!?!?!?!    W T F!!!!!!  Just come and fix the g-damn pipe and then repair the people’s g-damn floor, it’s not that difficult.  What is all this need for negotiating and seeking approval, if it was part of the agreement when the apartment was purchased, then fix it and then repair their floor.

Anyway, I’m done ranting.  I need to get ready for work anyway.

Not a good day

I checked my email today for the first time in a week and I did not like what I read.  Things aren’t so good on the home front and I’m 8000 miles away.  I feel completely helpless.  And, to top all of that, it is snowing and this damn city doesn’t turn on the heat for another 17 days

My lesson in patience

Today, I had my first experience in paying a credit card bill at Bank of China.  This was a horrible experience compared to paying a bill in the US.  In the US, you simply write a check, put it in an envelope, put a stamp on it and mail it.  Or, if you are a little more techno savi, you just do it online.   In China, however, you have to pay the bill in the currency that your purchase was made in.  I purchased my tickets to the US on travelocity.com and paid in US dollars on a Chinese credit card.  First, we were told to go upstairs to the credit card area.  Then we were told to go to 3 different counters before we were finally told to go downstairs to the main lobby to change our Chinese RMB to US dollars.  We went to the main lobby, got a number, waited and then went to a counter.  We were then told to go to the front part of the bank to get a permit to exchange Chinese RMB to US dollars.  We went there, then back to the main lobby, then finally upstairs, where the very "helpful" lady behind the desk gave us a hard time and finally took our money.   What it all came down to, I was getting impatient doing things the Chinese way. 

Next, we walked to Shengli Square to eat Pizza Hut, not open, 10:10am and the f’ing place isn’t open.  Pizza Hut in the US opens at 9am.  Again, impatience.

Now we’re on bus 602 taking the long ride back to Jinxiu Area.  I gave my seat to an old-timer, cuz I’m not like the typical Chinese 20-something guy who just looks out the window when he sees an old person get on the bus and pretends he doesn’t see the old people standing next to them holding 3 loaded bags of groceries.  We’re about 5 minutes from home, and I notice a traffic jam in the opposite lane of traffic, so I start to look for the cause.  This is where my lesson in patience came in. 

Laying in the street, in front of a smashed up, broken van, lay a girl, dead from the accident.  The police tried to cover the body with some jackets and shirts, but the shirts were not big enough.  Judging from the clothing the girl was wearing, I would say she was in her 20′s, probably in college or just out of college, and from a well-to-family.  It is tragic when a young person dies like this, and as much as I hate to say this about the deceased, but she was probably impatient and trying to cross the street between passing cars. 

Impatience cut this young person’s life short, prevented her from having a family of her own, or watching her family grow up.  It prevented her from a life time of achievements, experiences, lessons learned and lessons taught. 

Kind of makes my complaining about the banking system seem petty.