A long time ago when working at Dalian Maple Leaf, they gave me and the other teachers some excellent advice about living in China. That is to say, frustrations are bound to happen. Will you view them as an irritant or adventure?
It goes without saying that trying to get something done in China will be difficult and your patience will be tested. After going through this time and time again, it also amazes me how much power there is in the choices we have in how we perceive our circumstances. If frustration happens to you enough times, then you might as well shrug it off, see a bit of humor in it, and tell a story.
Alright so the plan was to mail a bottle of hand sanitizer to a friend who lives in Chongqing -- Yongchuan District to be exact, the location of one of the Maple Leaf Schools. I've been to that area before and it's rather remote, so anything I can do to help.
The nearest post office is just down the street from my apartment here in Shanghai. Having just mailed something there internationally (to Canada) the day before with a minimum of hassle, I figured it would be a cakewalk to mail something domestically. How wrong I was. After waiting for some time in line, the post office clerk snarled at me, took a look at the hand sanitizer, then looked at me like I was a terrorist trying to mail a liquid bomb.
"You want to mail this?" He asked. "Yes", I replied. He then asked if I had used this earlier. I said no.
He rattled something off that I needed to pack the hand sanitizer as it looked like it had been used already. So I asked him if he had a box to pack it in. He said a whole bunch more stuff which I couldn't understand, and I asked the people around me to help explain what was going on. Apparently I had to pack it myself. OK, so across the street I went to find a small box for carrying lightbulbs, and then packed the sanitizer in the box.
It seemed strange that I had to do this, because on previous errands at the post office, they usually provided a small green box for packing whatever it was.
So now back to the post office, this time to another clerk. She told me I needed to go back to the first guy and also pointed out that I had toothpaste on my lips.
Back to the first guy. He said the packing wasn't acceptable, and that I needed to put cotton around the hand sanitizer. OK, so where to get the cotton? An ayi sitting nearby told me I could go to the medicine shop just down the street. So I did that, and the people there were quite friendly and immediately had what I was looking for. One of them smiled at me and said I was wearing too few clothes for this cold weather, and to take care of my health. The other person, having learned I was from Canada, jokingly said, "Oh the guy's from Canada, he can handle the weather here."
Now back to the post office. This time they deemed the cotton packing acceptable and provided the small green box as mentioned above. The sanitizer was then packed into the box and the next hurdle came: filling out the slip for mailing to a Chongqing address. The ayi said, "Here's a pen" and gestured for me to fill it out.
So we have a clueless foreigner who has been going back and forth for an hour, and a crowd of clerks is now gathering to watch the fun. The irony here is they just watch as someone hands me a pen, and expects me to just fill out a form using Chinese characters. Nobody offers to help, despite me stating the obvious: I'm not very good at writing characters. OK, I can read, I'll admit that. But not write.
Even so, it appeared there was nothing to do but go through the torture of writing out one character at a time as best I could, copying from the computer printout slip that my friend had earlier emailed me. If that wasn't enough, I was given a black felt pen and had to repeat the entire process on the green box.
Not once did anyone think it strange that a foreigner was struggling to write characters, nor was anything mentioned about this reality. But they were able to read it fine, and the package was then sent on its way.
It goes without saying that trying to get something done in China will be difficult and your patience will be tested. After going through this time and time again, it also amazes me how much power there is in the choices we have in how we perceive our circumstances. If frustration happens to you enough times, then you might as well shrug it off, see a bit of humor in it, and tell a story.
Alright so the plan was to mail a bottle of hand sanitizer to a friend who lives in Chongqing -- Yongchuan District to be exact, the location of one of the Maple Leaf Schools. I've been to that area before and it's rather remote, so anything I can do to help.
The nearest post office is just down the street from my apartment here in Shanghai. Having just mailed something there internationally (to Canada) the day before with a minimum of hassle, I figured it would be a cakewalk to mail something domestically. How wrong I was. After waiting for some time in line, the post office clerk snarled at me, took a look at the hand sanitizer, then looked at me like I was a terrorist trying to mail a liquid bomb.
"You want to mail this?" He asked. "Yes", I replied. He then asked if I had used this earlier. I said no.
He rattled something off that I needed to pack the hand sanitizer as it looked like it had been used already. So I asked him if he had a box to pack it in. He said a whole bunch more stuff which I couldn't understand, and I asked the people around me to help explain what was going on. Apparently I had to pack it myself. OK, so across the street I went to find a small box for carrying lightbulbs, and then packed the sanitizer in the box.
It seemed strange that I had to do this, because on previous errands at the post office, they usually provided a small green box for packing whatever it was.
So now back to the post office, this time to another clerk. She told me I needed to go back to the first guy and also pointed out that I had toothpaste on my lips.
Back to the first guy. He said the packing wasn't acceptable, and that I needed to put cotton around the hand sanitizer. OK, so where to get the cotton? An ayi sitting nearby told me I could go to the medicine shop just down the street. So I did that, and the people there were quite friendly and immediately had what I was looking for. One of them smiled at me and said I was wearing too few clothes for this cold weather, and to take care of my health. The other person, having learned I was from Canada, jokingly said, "Oh the guy's from Canada, he can handle the weather here."
Now back to the post office. This time they deemed the cotton packing acceptable and provided the small green box as mentioned above. The sanitizer was then packed into the box and the next hurdle came: filling out the slip for mailing to a Chongqing address. The ayi said, "Here's a pen" and gestured for me to fill it out.
So we have a clueless foreigner who has been going back and forth for an hour, and a crowd of clerks is now gathering to watch the fun. The irony here is they just watch as someone hands me a pen, and expects me to just fill out a form using Chinese characters. Nobody offers to help, despite me stating the obvious: I'm not very good at writing characters. OK, I can read, I'll admit that. But not write.
Even so, it appeared there was nothing to do but go through the torture of writing out one character at a time as best I could, copying from the computer printout slip that my friend had earlier emailed me. If that wasn't enough, I was given a black felt pen and had to repeat the entire process on the green box.
Not once did anyone think it strange that a foreigner was struggling to write characters, nor was anything mentioned about this reality. But they were able to read it fine, and the package was then sent on its way.
You have definitely developed patience(long-suffering) :-)
ReplyDeleteHope the box gets to your friend ok.
Since this sort of thing is all just a game, you should charge a spectator's fee.
ReplyDeleteFor my part, I've had quite a range of service @China Post: Excedingly helpful, pseuo-helpful (often gruff suggestions like the above), indifference, to outright refusal of service. It all depends on the mood of the person you deal with.
My best story involves mailing something from Wuhan to my wife in Jilin, while she was taking care of her mom. The clerk was somewhat helpful (he gave me the stamps, after I bought them). However, he claimed he couldn't write the address for me (a uni student standing beside, me translated). After trying my best at writing in Chinese (my handwriting in any language is barely legible, while my artistic skills are worse), a uni prof offered to help. The clerk actually told the prof he wasn't allowd to write the address out for me. However, the prof ignored the clerk, wrote out everything all neet & tidy, handed the shipping slip back to the clerk and somehow managed to convince the clerk to put the slip on the package. Mind you, I was shipping a just a sweater, not the ingredients for cleansing one's hands.