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Aug. 26th, 2006 04:24 pmThanks to Wendi's skillz, I have three new lj friends! Please give a warm welcome to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kungfuaddict, utmartinjenn, and julieo. Now that I'm seriously handicapped in my real life friend-making skills, it's nice to have some new lj friends.
Have I mentioned that I'm continually getting scammed since we moved here? Ok, only twice, but still! I'm going to have so much more compassion for non-english speakers when I get back to the US.
The first scam: We have a water cooler in our apartment. Water from the sink is not potable, so we must always drink from the water cooler. When we moved in, we were given the water companies phone number and instructions to call them when we need more water. Our first week here, when Chris was gone, a guy came delivering a new jug of water. I showed him where to set it down because I thought he was just bringing us an extra one. He then went in the kitchen and removed the more-than-half-way-full one. I then paid him. After he left, I sat there baffled. What did I just let happen? Why didn't I stop him when I realized what he was doing?
I'm letting myself be a wimp because I don't speak Chinese.
The second scam was today. I decided I wanted a stroller and I was going to get it all alone. I knew they have good strollers at Carrefour, so I had Chris write down the name for me so I could show the taxi driver. There are 2 Carrefours in Nanjing. One is close to my home and one is way on the other side of town. Chris wrote down "Carrefour next to the library." The taxi driver took me to the other one! He probably knew (and he was right) that I wouldn't realize it until we were almost there. I usually sit in the back when we all ride in taxi's together and as a result I haven't really gotten to know my way around town. I can't see from back there. Ok, whatever, he took me to the wrong one, I had to pay him twice what I would have if he'd followed the directions Chris wrote down. Well, the real kicker came when I caught a taxi ride home. It was 3 rmb cheaper. Yup, not only did he take me to the one far away, but he took the long way so I'd have to pay more!!
Here's a little side story to the story: Once I realized we were not going to the right Carrefour, I called Chris on my cell and then handed the cell to the taxi driver. To me, it sounded like the driver was yelling at Chris. He then hung up the phone and started talking Chinese to me. When he saw the blank look on my face, he just kept repeating himself over and over. The only word he was saying that I knew was "dong-she" which means "something". Finally he said "blah blah blah Chinese blah?" I said No and he said sorry. He realized I didn't speak a word of Chinese.
On the good side, I got a stroller! It's a disney stroller, as most kid-things in China are. Disney, disney everywhere. Except when it's Snoopy. Snoopy's everywhere too.
kungfuaddict, utmartinjenn, and julieo. Now that I'm seriously handicapped in my real life friend-making skills, it's nice to have some new lj friends. Have I mentioned that I'm continually getting scammed since we moved here? Ok, only twice, but still! I'm going to have so much more compassion for non-english speakers when I get back to the US.
The first scam: We have a water cooler in our apartment. Water from the sink is not potable, so we must always drink from the water cooler. When we moved in, we were given the water companies phone number and instructions to call them when we need more water. Our first week here, when Chris was gone, a guy came delivering a new jug of water. I showed him where to set it down because I thought he was just bringing us an extra one. He then went in the kitchen and removed the more-than-half-way-full one. I then paid him. After he left, I sat there baffled. What did I just let happen? Why didn't I stop him when I realized what he was doing?
I'm letting myself be a wimp because I don't speak Chinese.
The second scam was today. I decided I wanted a stroller and I was going to get it all alone. I knew they have good strollers at Carrefour, so I had Chris write down the name for me so I could show the taxi driver. There are 2 Carrefours in Nanjing. One is close to my home and one is way on the other side of town. Chris wrote down "Carrefour next to the library." The taxi driver took me to the other one! He probably knew (and he was right) that I wouldn't realize it until we were almost there. I usually sit in the back when we all ride in taxi's together and as a result I haven't really gotten to know my way around town. I can't see from back there. Ok, whatever, he took me to the wrong one, I had to pay him twice what I would have if he'd followed the directions Chris wrote down. Well, the real kicker came when I caught a taxi ride home. It was 3 rmb cheaper. Yup, not only did he take me to the one far away, but he took the long way so I'd have to pay more!!
Here's a little side story to the story: Once I realized we were not going to the right Carrefour, I called Chris on my cell and then handed the cell to the taxi driver. To me, it sounded like the driver was yelling at Chris. He then hung up the phone and started talking Chinese to me. When he saw the blank look on my face, he just kept repeating himself over and over. The only word he was saying that I knew was "dong-she" which means "something". Finally he said "blah blah blah Chinese blah?" I said No and he said sorry. He realized I didn't speak a word of Chinese.
On the good side, I got a stroller! It's a disney stroller, as most kid-things in China are. Disney, disney everywhere. Except when it's Snoopy. Snoopy's everywhere too.