Today is a day that I will never forget, but is one that I wouldn’t mind not remembering. It was supposed to be my first day of work. I was to meet Bonny outside my apartment at 8:15, and then we would go to the police station to get my temporary residence certificate and then she would take me to work. Let me remind you that the time difference is GMT+8; which means that all you have to do is add 13 hours to Eastern time, which is what I am accustomed to. I woke up at 3:42 am this morning. I tried going back to sleep, I tried listening to music, reading, everything; nothing. I got changed around 8:00 and then headed down to meet with Bonny. 8:10…8:15…I remember she first said half past 8 at first…8:30…8:40…I have no idea where she is and I have no way of contacting her. My phone does not have the capabilities of switching a number that easily and I’m not ready to start spending money on international calls when I’m already international. 8:45…8:50…I say to myself, “Hey self, maybe she meant to meet at the police station!” So I start walking to the police station (we went there two days ago, but they were closed). I get to the police station after my awesome navigational skills and see no Bonny. So I say to myself, “Self, time to head back.” At this point I am STARVING (9:15 Shanghai = Dinner time America). I get back to my apartment around 9:30 and start microwaving some stale Chinese cookies hoping to create some genius cookie, and then my door knocks. It’s Bonny. I hardly understand what she is saying cuz I am just so tired and hungry.
We go to the police station and get my certificate after taking a bus. Bonny begins telling me how to get to work and which bus number and which stop to get off at, I start taking notes. We’re now on the bus to work. It takes about 40 minutes because we were going in the wrong direction. We then get off at a stop that she did not say to get off at, and start walking. My feet are killing me and I’m still STARVING. We finally get to the office building and walk inside the firm: VMC Construtioms (That’s spelled correctly). Bonny talks to the receptionist and then a girl walks in. They looked confused and don’t really know what to do. I am supposed to meet the HR lady Amy. The girl walks up to me and introduces her name as “Phoenix”, cool name. She tells me, “Amy isn’t here right now. She’ll be back in…2…no 3 hours.” What am I supposed to say to that?! I just shrug and say good bye to Bonny. Phoenix sits me down at a desk and I just sit there. The other employees are talking to each other in Chinese (obviously) and I’m the minority in my own ethnicity. Phoenix tells me we’re going to lunch, THANK YOU!!! We walk out the office building and take a sharp right into a building that I think is a construction site. It’s just the back entrance into the “food court”. It smells, it dirty, it humid, it’s China. This was what I was looking for. Real Chinese people and real Chinese food. I don’t know what I was about to eat, I just didn’t pick anything green. I ended up with some fish that had tons of scales (which isn’t uncommon) and some kinda chickenish thing and huge pile of rice. I down everything and then head up to the office.
They tell me to sit back down and just look at the companies website. cooooool. A guy named Terry tells me to follow him and he sits me down in a different desk. His English is not very good and I’m glad that he acnoknowledges it. He asks me what I do, Architect and then follows up with this question, “Do you want to design architecture or decorate?” I was put back and said design. He said, “Oh…we don’t do that here, we do the decorate.” I was astonished to hear an interior designer say that they only decorate. I think a lot of DAAP professors would like to have a word with Terry. I spend the rest of the day looking at plans and pictures and just sitting at the desk. I finally meet Amy hoping that she would speak English, she doesn’t. Terry then gives me an assignment. To design a small 5 star hotel. He checks on my work and gives tidbits of wisdom like: You design from outside in; now design from inside out. Terry is now my immediate supervisor, which is cool because I know I will learn a lot from him. I leave work early and the adventure doesn’t stop.
I’m exhausted. I have been up since 3:42 and have walked at least 5 miles, I’m dehydrated and only eaten one meal. I try to remember how to get back and start walking to try and find the right bus. It’s not long before I find myself lost. Completely lost. So lost that I can’t even ask someone for directions because I don’t know how to do that. I do what I know best. As Dorrie says, “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming…” I just keep walking. I walk and walk and walk hoping to find the right bus. I give up and decide to just get a cab. Luckily Next Step Connections gave me a card with my address on it and I just show it to the taxi driver. Chinese people in China are crazy drivers. When we think about road rage, we think about people getting angry and wanting to do harm to someone or they are just really frustrated. That’s all the drivers in China. There are no easy cut-ins, red lights don’t really exist and it seems it is a survival of the fittest.
I finally get home and I’m ready for a vacation already.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment