Today on September 15th

http://www.kentkedl.com/?tag=staring

Today we walked down the street carrying a vacuum. As they do, people seemed interested in the foreign-made spectacle.

Today we tried to pay our phone bill, but no one was at the counter and we couldn't read the Chinese signs.


Today we won't be able to pay our phone bill. We will have to pay on another occasion, maybe with some help from a Chinese friend. (True, our friend went and paid for us after we tried a few times.)

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Today we tried to pay our cellphone bill. We tried to follow the "normal procedure," but they have changed the normal procedure. Instead of going to a person, now they have technology. We have to pay our cellphone bill at an automated machine -- in Chinese. We had to stand and wait for help. They were kind. They helped us.

Today we saw (once again) how helpless we are in this foreign land. When systems or procedures change, when people aren't sitting at their normal desks, we have no idea what is going on and there is no real way that we (by ourselves) can figure out why that person is not sitting at their desk at 2:15 in the afternoon. (It's not lunch time, but we can't read the signs -- or understand the words that would tell us what is the new procedure and how we should come back and conduct ourselves.)

Today is another day in China.