Day 445 It wasn't meant to be

It took the ENTIRE WEEK to order and receive two air filters for my air purifiers, and for me to mail two packages home.  It was a rough week, one that lead me to my first honest to goodness funk here in China.  I've been here one and a half years, so I guess China was bound to finally get to me.  It happened this week- several times over.  I'm still working at trying to get back to my happy place.

Note the photo above.... see all that madness???

This is how packages get delivered in China.  Remember the post I wrote about 11/11?  It is Singles Day in China where singles see fit to treat themselves to all sorts of gifts by ordering off the internet. It is the equivalent to our Cyber Monday following Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

Well, the streets ARE LITTERED with all of these little tuk-tuk delivery carts that are loaded down with boxes and packages to be picked up.  For the life of me, I don't understand how it all works- but it seems to in the end.  If you remember, they spent 14.3 billion US dollars on the internet in one 24 hour cycle.  Can you imagine what logistics are involved in delivering all of that crap?!  Well, you really don't need to imagine after all, as the streets and sidewalks look like the photo you see above.

All of this means that I picked the WRONG WEEK to decide to replace my air filters.  It took all of Monday and Tuesday for my Chinese colleague to locate a company that carried my brand of filters. For one filter I had to pay my colleague in cash, and he used his special card to order it- that was easy.  For the other filter, it was COD (cash on delivery).  Now any other time of year this is not usually a problem, as there may be no more than three or four tuk-tuk delivery carts outside our west gate of the school. The carts are there every lunch hour (kids order McDonald's, KFC, and Pizza Hut delivery for lunch- yep, even Chinese kids get tired of Chinese food for lunch, lol). Unfortunate timing on my part, because as of late there are now no less than 20 carts jamming the sidewalks and streets with their packages splayed out everywhere, to be located by their rightful owners.  I wish I could say it is like going on a fun Easter Egg Hunt kind of an adventure.  There is NOTHING fun about it.  Adding to the misery of this game of hide and seek is the fact that winter has definitely settled in to the 'jing and it is blistering cold.  F'n miserable.  (yeah, the cold weather, gray sky, polluted air has not helped my usual sunny disposition).

I was in the middle of teaching class when my cell phone started ringing incessantly.  I would answer, the Chinese man on the other end would start gibbering in Mandarin, and then we took turns hanging up on each other- in total frustration.  As soon as class let out, I went to one of my Chinese colleagues, hit redial, and handed her the phone.  It was the delivery man, my first filter had arrived.
Thankfully, my Chinese colleague had the presence of mind to ask which delivery company it was, so she wrote down the Chinese characters for me, and told me to look for a blue and white cart.  Over my lunch break, I raced down to the west gate, with at least 100 other students and staff all looking to pick up their orders of food and such.  By the third blue and white cart I approached, and a whimsical game of charades, I was able to pick up my filter.  All and all, for Chinese errands, it was relatively painless, in spite of five total phone calls in the span of an hour.  Yeah, that's painless for the China.

Feeling full of myself and quite confident, I decided that since I managed to score on one Chinese errand for the day, I may as well try for two.  I went to the China Post after school to mail a book home to a friend in Florida.  I typed what I wanted in to the Google translate app on my iPhone before I left school.  You see, things get more complicated by the fact that Google is banned in China.  They apparently hate one another.  Google is behind the Great Firewall of China which means you must have a working VPN on your phone or computer to be able to access it.  Often times when you are out and about in the 'jing, and not connected to wifi, it can be nearly impossible to get your VPN to connect.  This means you are left taking care of business, running errands, buying medicine, ordering food, all without your trusty translator app.  And this is WHY I play one helluva game of charades, people!  No really, this is why I seriously need to build my Mandarin vocabulary beyond twenty words and the ability to count to 10! It is such a complicated language for this old woman to learn.

I digress.....

I get to the China Post after school.  I show her my request on my iPhone in Mandarin, that I wanted my package sent airmail to the United States.  I had written a card to this person, and stuck it in the book.  The clerk got all sorts of animated with me over this card.  I was trying to charade to her to simply put the card back in the book, they were 'flying' (arms flapping) together to the same address. She got louder and even more animated with me.  Why is it when people speak to you in a foreign language and you don't understand, they simply say the same damn things to you over and over ONLY LOUDER??? At this point, her shouting and my flapping was creating quite the scene, and thankfully another Chinese patron who had very broken "engrish" came to my rescue.  Apparently the problem was that my envelope was sealed.  It had to be inspected.  It's not like I had anything explosive tucked in my greeting card, but in that moment, I was really wishing it was full of purple and pink glitter. She tore the envelope open (not happy here) saw there was nothing inside but "engrish letters" and she handed it back to me.  I handed it back to her, and with a little more chittering and flapping, the envelope got back in the book, into an airmail envelope, and was sent on its way.  That only took 30 minutes of my life I'd like to have back.

By Thursday, my second air filter had arrived to the school.  When my phone rang the first time with a chittering Chinese man on the other end, I took my chances that it was indeed the delivery man. This time, however, I didn't know which tuk-tuk to look for.  I left for the gate, and stepped out into the lunch hour/rush hour delivery madness to a scene like you see in the photo at the beginning of this post.  Mind you, it was at least 20 delivery tuk-tuks, and you could barely step on the sidewalk and street for all the people and packages.  I decided to start at one end of the line and work my way down.  Armed with my iPhone in hand, I hit redial, and said "Ni hao! Hello! Are you my delivery man?"  Now most of these delivery men all had their phones to their ears, as they were calling owners like myself to come pick up their packages.  So there I was hitting redial over and over again, and then getting within a few feet of the person to see if they were talking to me.  I am sure my actual delivery guy was totally pissed as I called him no less than six times in a row before I finally found him.  Actually, true to Chinese form, when he saw the green eyed laowai looking dazed and confused, he was all too eager to help me out.  The Chinese, they really are pleasant, helpful people for the most part.  I got my filter, paid the COD, and then he took a selfie of us together on his phone. It's the Chinese way.

By Friday, I was feeling full of myself at my Chinese accomplishments, so I decided I was going to mail the first of my Christmas boxes home to my oldest daughter, her husband, and the grandkids.  I had been told not to wrap the presents (that was a bummer) as everything must be inspected.  That was to be expected after the fiasco I had over a mere sealed greeting card earlier in the week.  I decided to go on my lunch hour back to the China Post to take care of business.  I printed labels for my boxes, had my request up on my translator app and was locked, loaded and ready to go, and I mean I was loaded.  I was lugging two big boxes full of prezzies in an IKEA shopping bag.  I walked in to the China Post, and it was the same lady that waited on me earlier in the week.  I greeted her with a Ni hao! and a smile, and she clearly recognized me.  I started unloading my boxes from the bag, and she once again got all sorts of animated with me.  I got out my passport (you have to have your passport to mail packages).  I got out the labels.  I opened the boxes for her to inspect, and she just got louder, and louder, and LOUDER.  Something clearly was not working here.

With no other patrons in the building, in desperation, I called one of my Chinese colleagues to talk to this woman and get her to simmer down.  I handed her my phone, she chittered away with him, and handed the phone back to me.  What I failed to understand was that this particular China Post does not handle large boxes.  I needed to go to a different location.  I call bu****it on that one, as I saw two people with boxes get waited on there the other day.  Sometimes China just likes to mess with laowais.  I'm not even kidding; like taxi drivers will wave you off because they simply don't want to deal with the language barrier.  Now thankfully that is on rare occasion, as they generally are kind and helpful, but every now and then you get a hold of a real stinker. (that also stinks).

So, I loaded my boxes back in the bag, and headed out into the wind and freezing rain for a nearly 20 minute walk to the next location.  I had no hat, no mittens, no scarf, no umbrella. and a good twenty pounds of Christmas cheer I was hauling down the busy streets of Beijing. I had the presence of mind to stop at an ATM along the way (to thaw out) and get more cash to mail my package, just. in. case.

I walked in to the second China Post, stepped up to the window to show her my phone with my request translated in to Mandarin, and my phone DIED.  I didn't have my portable battery with me, and that nearly sent me in to a panic.  I took a deep breath, asked if anyone spoke English, and then resigned myself to a complicated game of charades to get these boxes air mailed (arms flapping) to the United States (see my passport???)  I was directed to another window, and was about to start the game all over again, but I soon realized this was the inspector.  I opened my boxes, and she began rifling through...

and handing presents back to me.

One after another she would say "No", and hand it to me.  Another "No."  Another "No."  Another "No"  Yet, another "No."  After about the fifth "No", most of which was my grandkid's gifts, I was DONE with China.

I HATED China in that moment.  I missed my family.  I missed my home.  I was missing the holidays.  And why does EVERYTHING have to be so f'n COMPLICATED???  I couldn't help myself- out of sheer frustration- and an intense and immediate bout of homesickness- I started crying. I could not stop.  Every package she handed back to me made the tears flow all the more.  Every time she said "No" I would put a package back in my bag and wipe more tears away.  When all was said and done, only half of the items could be mailed- literally.

She looked at me holding a half full shopping bag, and just kept saying "No, No, No".  Only this time she was trying to tell me to stop crying, and she was trying to hand me a tissue. Her kindness and empathy for me in my moment of vulnerability made me cry that much more.  I was totally undone.

In the end, it cost me $120 US dollars to mail only half of the grandkids' Christmas.  All I could do was force myself back out into the freezing rain for the 30 minute walk back to school, carrying half of my unmailed Christmas presents and feeling incredibly homesick and sorry for myself.  I hit a new low this last Friday, and it was a low that Kraft Mac n' Cheese could not pull me out of.  I was supposed to a attend a birthday bash with about twenty of my Western teacher friends.  It probably would have been good for my mental health, but I could not bring myself to go back out into the cold in my sorry state. When I got home from school, I was in bed by 5pm, and I stayed there until 9am on Saturday.  Sixteen straight hours in bed??? That is unheard of for me. I was in a serious funk,  y'all. The question was, how was I going to pull myself out of it, all the way in China?  Stay tuned.

G'nite, y'all.