On-Going Saga

In the last posting, I described my frustration at dealing with the repairman for our washing machine and his rather defunct translator. The pair stood gathered on our laundry balcony for most of the afternoon, and so many parts of the conversation I left un-imparted. Although it may have been implied, I left unsaid my belief that this repairman - the man from the factory - had no idea how to run our washer.

His explanations for how the washer worked bordered on ludicrous at times, causing me to doubt his knowledge. It is customary in China never to say I don't know. If someone asks you a question, you answer. Whether or not you know the correct answer has little bearing - to admit you did not know would lead to great loss of face. At one point, in as calm a voice as possible, I asked my translator if she believed that he knew how to operate the machine. She misinterpreted my question a few times, and so eventually I placed my hand on her arm, looked her straight in the eye, and said.

Please tell me. Does he know how to run this machine? Because I do not believe he knows how to run this machine.

She grinned slightly. I knew she understood my question.

And after a pause, she expressed her confidence in his knowledge. She went on to explain that the numbers on the machine were not temperature, as I had imagined. They were in fact time.

If you want to lie to save your reputation, I suggest lying in a fashion which won't immediately be discovered. The first time I operated the machine I noticed that the run time did not match the number I had chosen. Either the man explained incorrectly, or he did not fix the problem. Either way, he has not gained any of my respect.

The fixing of the house is not getting any smoother, and unfortunately my nerves are wearing thin. Our toilet overflowed this morning, and we went 3 hours, 3 phone calls and 4 knocks on the door before someone arrived with a plunger. He fixed the problem in under 3 minutes - after over 3 hours of process.

The balcony was repainted last week. The painter decided to forego scraping off the old, chipping paint and simply covered with new paint. Bad idea #1. Bad idea #2: he made no effort to keep clean, not only leaving dirt and chips of old paint on the floor but also leavinga nice splatter-paint pattern on the tile of the balcony, becoming clearly denser at it nears the painted railing. Bad idea #3: and this is my personal favorite. They painted the wrong color. The buildings in our complex are a depressing grey color with teal and bronze trim. The effect is no more beautiful than it sounds. But at least the complex looked uniform - until our agent decided to paint our balcony silver.

At least they'll have no trouble spotting us.