Hello Friends and family,
Just wanted to let you know that my dear wife is feeling better and is on the road to recovery. We had a fantastic time yesterday (Friday) with some friends here celebrating their daughter's one year old birthday party. A one year old birthday party is a very big deal in China, even more so than in the U.S., because the infant mortality rate here can be very high, so it was a special day and we were honored to be a part of it. Not only did we get to attend the party but we got to help set up ahead of time. We arrived at the apartment approximately 4 hours before it started and my first task was to go to the supermarket to pick up eggs, apples, plates, chips and forks for the party. I could have taken a taxi, but our friend had a electric bike that he said I could ride to the supermarket and back. So I hopped on for my first adventure of controlling my own transportation in China. Now, the one rule in China when it comes to traffic is that there ARE NO RULES. Not everyone really obeys the stop lights, no one puts blinkers on and NO ONE looks before changing langes. Luckily for me, the supermarket wasn't far and there was a seperate lane for motor and electric bikes. So I aggressively swerved in and out of lanes and dodged pedestrians and potholes through the streets of Nanning. I made it to the supermarket and went to park the bike outside. After the guy watching the bikes had to help me put the kickstand up on the bike, I finally found the door that led my inside the supermarket.
The supermarkets in China are an adventure in themselves. And for someone like me, with spatial oritentation disabilities, it was disarming and destabilizing. The initial entry into the supermarket doesn't feed you into an open area where you can see all of your options and pick your row, but rather weaves you in and out of different 'mini-stores' selling tea or medicine until you get past the electronics and household appliances and finally reach the food. Again, I have problems at supermarkets in the U.S. without my wife and she was busy helping back at the apartment so I was on my own. I was able to find the apples in the produce section, no problem. Then, after realizing the eggs were in plastic wrappers, not in cartons, I found those as well. The plates I had bought before so that was a breeze. But the...oh yes...I also had oil on my list. I finally found the oil aisle (say that ten times fast) and saw a row of different colors, shapes and sizes of oil. I think I called my friend who I was picking up the items for maybe six times while at the supermarket and he was starting to wonder if I would return at all... ever. But I found the oil that was 'about a gallon, with the picture of the fish and corn on it' after about ten minutes and victoriously headed towards the checkout counter when I realized I hadn't found forks yet. I went back to the area with the paper plates but the forks weren't next to them. I tried to ask a worker at the supermarket if they had forks, but my chinese is not so good, so i said 'chopsticks' in Chinese, which I knew, then tried to explain that it was forks i needed. After awhile of her thinking I was a crazy foreigner with no language skills, she said a word I recognized as forks and I said, 'Dui' which means, 'correct'. She said 'me you' which means, 'we don't have'. Exhausted and saddened, I phoned my friend for the seventh time and informed him of the bad news. 'But alas,' we conspired, Wal-Mart was new and next to their apartment. So I got to make two trips on the electric bike. After buying the goods, getting the kick stand back up (with help again from the guard) I navigated my way back to their apartment (again difficult with my spatial orientation disability) and set out for wal-mart. I arrived at wal-mart and the plate and utensil section I found with ease. But as I combed through the plastic utensils, I realized that they only had one packet of forks and the rest were spoons. The packets had eight forks and our friends were expecting fifty people, so eight forks would not be enough. I again, with my awful Chinese, tried to ask the worker where the rest of the forks were hidden from foreigners in desperate need of them, but of course, she couldn't understand me, and I think she began to try and explain to me that forks and spoons are the same thing. We came to an impass in our language exchange, and while she made a valiant effort, I realized my mission for forks had failed. But to the rescue came our flexible and forgiving friends who I called for the eigth time and they said, 'the spoons will work and buy chopsticks too'! Crisis averted, the world was saved and I returned triumphantly to the apartment, we set up tables and chairs and the party was a big success. It was fun to be a part of and see so many foreigners and nationals celebrating a birthday together. The food was outstanding and the friendships even better and I can now check off my list of transportation experiences in China; riding an electric bike through randomly dangerous traffic to the supermarket and sitting on a chair in the back of a truck delivering tables and chairs to apartments for the party. What a day!!! Thanks for listening. Talk to you soon.
Sincerely,
Ryan and Kealy Thorson
Kealy and the birthday girl!
1 comment:
Good words.
Post a Comment