Sunday, September 22, 2013

All it takes is tears


Alright guys, I had a pretty rough week last week. Nothing extreme was happening, but things started piling up I guess. I was starting to feel overwhelmed in my classes and was having lots of negative feelings about China. One day I had to go get a registration permit so I can continue to live in this place, so I took my scooter to the visa issuing building and was ushered through doors and kept going to the wrong place because nobody would just talk to me. When I finally got to the right place and went through three different booths going through all the paperwork, I went to the final booth to finish up, and they told me that I was lacking one of the necessary papers to finish the permit application. I knew that I had it, and that I had simply left it at my apartment. So instead of going back home and picking it up and bringing it back, I sat down on a bench in the office and I cried. Like a little girl. With a hundred different eyes staring at me. One of the girls that had been helping me noticed me crying and came over to talk to me. She assumed I was upset because I didn’t understand what was going on, so she continued to speak to me in English and tell me not to cry. One of her reasons was that my country wouldn’t like it or something. Like since I’m an American, Obama is going to find out about this and it will turn into a diplomatic incident. It’s all about face. She wouldn’t want people to think that an American had a bad experience in China, so they were totally willing to help me once I started bawling, which made me angry so it was harder to stop crying. So I walked up to the counter COMPLETELY embarrassed. There were people everywhere! Have I mentioned that? In China, you are NEVER ALONE. I couldn’t just walk to the bathroom and get all of my tears out, I had to take a walk of shame through the staring to get back to the counter. When we got there, the lady was like “So we’ll just have the police department fax the paper over”. Apparently they had easy access to this paper that they had neglected to mention. REALLY? You knew all along that you could easily obtain this paper, and instead of helping me out in the first place, you were going to make me go an hour out of my way to get it? It doesn’t make sense to me! In America, when you have a problem, workers go out of their way to help you. Customer service! It does not exist in China.

But I have learned some valuable lessons from this experience. 1. All it takes is tears! I got something unthinkable accomplished, in a government building, IN CHINA. This never happens! There is a commonly used phrase in China: “没办法”, which basically means “there is no solution”. When a problem arises, a lot of the time people give up. In this bustling world where people work harder than anyone I’ve ever seen, there is too much to do to spend too much time on one little problem. But there is a 办法!Every problem has a solution. For the people in that building, all it took for them to find the 办法was an adorable blonde girl crying. Maybe someday everyone in China will find a 办法.  2. I need to stop blaming my problems on China. I tend to lump a country of 1.351 billion individual people into one huge entity fighting against me. That is racist, and single-minded, and will help me accomplish nothing. I need to take responsibility for my own problems and stop giving up so easily.

That was last week. I am much better now. I am still a little inconsistent in how I feel about being here. Sometimes I love everything about this place, and sometimes I want to punch China in the face, but overall it is getting better. I have been playing volleyball on the school courts which is so much fun. We went on a flagship outing last weekend to the Ming emperor tombs and the mausoleum of Sun Yat-sen. 






My friend Crystal being awesome


I have been to both of them before, but it was still nice to get out and get some sun.
On Saturday night, some of us went to Pizza Hut for Eric’s birthday and it was amazing. They do have some really strange flavors and offer a lot more than pizza, but I had a slice of regular pepperoni pizza which was divine. I am going to need to restrain myself from eating it all the time because it’s pretty expensive. Afterwards, we went shopping at the market called Fashion Lady underneath the main shopping district in Nanjing. When everybody else left, I hit up H&M and was basically there until it closed. Luckily I didn’t bring a lot of cash or I would have bought all the things. They actually have my size! No sneering stick-skinny Chinese girls telling me I have fat thighs. It was a beautiful time. I have a feeling I will become great friends with that place while I’m here.



I started another one of my classes today. It was in a classroom with probably around 80 seats and there were kids crowded in the aisles and out the backdoor. I thought signing up for classes at BYU was hard, I can’t even imagine China enrollment fiascos. Oh wait, yes I can. Here’s a picture:




I can’t decide if that was worse, or my class a few hours later. I had attended this class twice before, and there were about 10 students in it each time. Many master’s courses didn’t start until this week, which means that a lot of the students haven’t even been in Nanjing until now. When I got to class, there were about 5 more people than usually, filling up our classroom of about 15 seats. About 10 minutes into class, 6 more students arrived looking for places to sit. Another couple of people filtered in over the next few minutes and the teacher had to find more chairs. At this point, I didn’t think that the classroom could possibly fit any more people. It was small to begin with, and there were chairs lining the walls on every side of the room. Oh how wrong I was. In another 10 minutes, another 10 students came looking to sit down and somehow they all managed to fit in. It defied the laws of space and time. Literally all of the space in the classroom had been taken up, but somehow more space appeared. I have not ruled out that the room could either be a TARDIS or under an expansion charm. Further investigation results to be posted.
That’s pretty much it! Nothing terribly exciting. In other news: yellow fever. Asian boys are getting cuter every day.
China pics of the day:

My China escape


My adorable roommate


Pork deliciousness



     
What does this mean?

5 comments:

  1. Ohhh Shayn I miss you so much! I'm sorry you had a rough day - but I'm glad you have a good attitude about it! You are own of the strongest girls I know, I can't even picture you crying. Keep going girl! I love you!

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  2. Girls RULE the world...probably! Love you Shaynee Waynee Poo Poo! Hang in there and remember to watch for more tender mercies.

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  3. shayn rules the world! i'm so sorry sweet shayn. that must have been so rough. i don't know how you do it! but i know that you can and will continue to be awesome. all your pictures look amazing, please keep writing! i miss you over here, so don't forget about me. and find lots of cute chinese men! love you!

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  4. I'm glad you are having a better week and playing volleyball - fun! Also I'm too amazed that you can take a class in Chinese still. You're wonder woman. And I'm glad they have subway in China. Someday when I go there I'll have something to eat ;)

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  5. these pictures are beautiful, you are beautiful, and that subway looks beautiful. yay for better weeks. have an awesome dayyyyy shayn yi shan! (second comment i know, i just miss ya so dang much).

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