Just when you thought it was safe...

…WATER reared its ugly, pointy-toothed head again this week. Peter, back in Harbin for the week, went home from work on Wednesday to find there was absolutely no running water in the flat. He called Kevin to find out what was going on. Kevin phoned building management and came back with the response that it was switched off for ‘routine maintenance’ (nice of them to warn us) and that it would be back on ‘hopefully before Saturday’.

‘SATURDAY???!!!!!!’ shrieked Peter (who was flying back to Shanghai on Friday and didn’t fancy leaving toilets unflushed and taps in a dubious on/off position). ‘I’m sorry’, said Kevin glumly. ‘I don’t know what to say to make you happy’. Poor lad, he always takes it personally. In the event, it was back on by the time Peter got up on Thursday morning, but not before he’d texted me at 10.30pm saying he was going to bed because he was ‘so depressed about it’.

Then on Friday morning, I tried to turn on a tap in Shanghai, to find that the water had gone off here too! It had been fine half an hour earlier so I suspected it was somehow connected to the loud drilling, banging, and overpowering smell of solvent which had all been emanating from the flat upstairs since 8am. I went back to bed and by the time I woke up we were back on tap. What is it with these people though? Back home, if your water is scheduled to be switched off for five minutes you get a note through the door a week in advance. Here, the notion that they might be inconveniencing anyone simply doesn’t seem to cross their minds.

The chief species of water inconveniencing me at the moment, however, is that which I’m lugging around in my belly and my legs. A couple of Sundays ago I looked down to find my bump had undergone a sudden growth spurt and seemed to be sticking out several inches further than it had done that morning. At 33 (or is it 34 – they can’t decide) weeks pregnant, I am now the size of a house – no, make that a largish hotel - and need a crane to levitate me off the sofa most nights. Not much fun when the temperature is already hovering around the 30 degree mark – although believe it or not, Harbin was actually hotter than Shanghai this week. This – coupled with the frustrations of an internet connection which is becoming increasingly slow for unknown reasons – explains my lack of blogging recently. It’s a long walk to the computer these days, and this desk ain’t big enough for the both of us!

The size of my tum caused some consternation last time I visited the hospital. ‘You gain too much weight!’ ‘Too much eat!!’ (charming), ‘You have big baby! We must check!’. One ultrasound later, and Baby was revealed not to be a monster - apart from the head, which was already 92% of the size of a full-term baby’s! – nor was chocolate the culprit, or not the sole one anyway. No, my problem, it appears, is ‘too much fluid’. (Bloody water. I’m telling you.) So now they want to do another ultrasound tomorrow to make sure the fluid levels have stabilised. ‘But if your belly suddenly get bigger, call us and come in STRAIGHT AWAY!’ They certainly know how to stress me out.

The trouble is that having grown up with the NHS, to me the words ‘I’d like to run some further tests’ strike fear into the heart. British doctors only ever say this if they think there might be something seriously wrong with you. Otherwise their standard advice is ‘Take two paracetamol, go to bed and ring me in the morning’. So I’ve been having some trouble adjusting to the ‘We test because we can’ approach of private medicine, especially that practised by American-trained doctors and aimed mainly at American patients. I finally understand those episodes of ER where the storyline involved the docs haranguing some poor unfortunate who needed an arm transplant or whatever but couldn’t afford it because their insurance didn’t cover it.

In fact most of my preconceptions about private medicine have been turned on their heads. There are no hushed, white rooms or smiling nurses gliding about offering you biscuits. On the contrary, it’s all a bit like ER really, minus the shouting, the shooting and the helicopter crashes. Time being money, the doctors seem to see about six patients at once and scurry about between multiple consulting rooms. They run vast swathes of tests for everything under the sun, with no apparent consideration of the cost to you or actual probability that you might have the condition concerned.

When, in my naivety, I tried to refuse a certain test on the grounds that I didn’t think I needed it, it was too expensive, and, hey, actually, wasn’t I the ‘customer’ and therefore had the right to decline anything I didn’t want, all hell nearly broke loose. It became apparent that they had never encountered such a response before. The nurses were highly confused, the doctor embarked on a quite unwarranted prophesy of doom, and in the end I felt so bullied that I backed down, on the understanding that this was ‘absolutely the last blood test’ they would perform on me. Not so, as it turns out – but being Chinese, of course, they won’t tell you in advance what they’ve got up their sleeves for you in the future, preferring to spring it on you when you go in for what you think is a routine check-up. And nobody has the time or, apparently, the inclination, to consider the psychological impact of all this, or indeed to acknowledge that there might be an emotional side to pregnancy at all.

So, caught between Chinese vagueness and American hyper-efficiency, I sometimes find myself longing to wait three hours for a doctor who’ll say ‘Well that all looks ok to me, but come back and see me again if anything actually drops off.’ But I suppose that the standard of care I get here will be ultimately much better, the medical staff are more likely to speak fluent English, and at least I won’t die of MRSA. I just wish there was a fast track for this baby business. Nine months is a long time.

Watery woes - postscript

The bad news: the window cleaners not only managed to soak our utility room with water pouring through from upstairs. They also knocked our satellite dish out of alignment, so I had to get the TV repair people back AS WELL. Water: you'd never believe the amount of trouble it can cause.

The good news: Peter told Big Boss about our taxi-in-the-rain experience, and he and several others were so horrified that a series of urgent meetings was held, with the result that we now have top priority access to company cars and drivers whenever we want them! I'm now feeling slightly guilty, and obliged to call out drivers for the slightest thing ('Er, I need to go to the shop for a pint of milk, can you send a car please?') to justify making such a fuss. They are also under strict instructions NEVER to send the Sciatica-Mobile van for me again. This was after an unfortunate incident when they sent it for us to do some baby-shopping in last week - thinking they were being helpful - and I flat refused to get in it.

AND, from some time in June to be confirmed, they're going to pay to keep the drivers on 24-hour standby on a rota for me going into labour! Which has got to beat standing by the side of the road in a downpour, probably in the middle of the night, with taxi drivers taking one look at me clutching my belly and thinking 'Blimey, I don't want her in the back of my taxi', for which I would hardly blame them.

And if I can contrive to break my washing machine again, I'll get a new one.

Now if THIS is what a bit of water trouble can do, I say bring it on!

Watery woes

You know how they say that as you get older, you just turn into your parents? Well I think it’s finally happened, and not quite in the way I expected.

My father had a deep loathing of problems with water. Of a household or environmental nature. He hated rain, refused to visit certain places on the grounds that they were ‘too bloody wet’, and at home any burst pipe or leaking window was always the source of immense trauma. Unfortunately, like a cat instinctively making a feline beeline for someone who’s allergic, it was as if water knew how much he hated it, and concocted ever crueller and more inventive ways of tormenting him. Like the time he and my mother looked after an elderly neighbour’s house one Christmas and ended up having to defrost a foot-thick block of ice off her water tank. Or when they drove me to university for the first time, staying away for the weekend, and came back to find our hall under three or four inches of water and the house with several thousand pounds’ worth of damage thanks to a toilet cistern which had cracked just before we left the house, and had been continually refilling for two days. The malice of water.

Well it’s a good job he never went to Shanghai. In Harbin our domestic difficulties mainly seemed to involve electrics. We had bulbs blowing and tripping not just one fuse but the entire flat; dodgy starters (or ‘cube things’ to give them their technical name as employed by Kevin!) on lights, and a meter which you had to pay for in advance. But ever since we got here it’s been one disaster after another, and every one of them has involved water in some capacity or other. I know I alluded to these before, but I feel compelled now to share the soggy and unpleasant details with you.

First of all there was the washing machine, which you’ll recall was broken when we moved in. It’s a knackered, old-fashioned washer-dryer contraption – one of those with a dial which turns through all the programmes – 1996 model, I was informed, and it belongs in the scrapyard. No washing machine is designed to last that long. I think 13 years in washing machine time is like dog years and it’s about 276 by our reckoning. The writing on the front has mostly worn off so that you can’t read which programme is which – although as it’s all in Chinese this is less of a problem for me than it could be. It rocks and shudders with alarming vigour when spinning and makes a noise like a small puppy being tortured and then run over by a juggernaut. In Harbin I had a lovely new one – purchased by us on the day we moved in – so it was always going to be a difficult adjustment, but I comforted myself with the thought that at least it isn’t a horrid toploader, which are still pretty much standard in China, and it’s indoors, unlike those in a couple of the apartments I looked round which had their washing machines on a balcony outside.

Anyway when we came to use it we found that the motor which turns the dial had given out, meaning the thing would wash, rinse or spin indefinitely unless you cranked the dial manually round to the next number. Grrr. How the previous tenants failed to notice this is beyond me. Either they must have thought this was how it was supposed to work, or else they never did any washing; probably the latter, if their other standards of domestic cleanliness are anything to go by – and I refer my readers to my last-but-one post to appreciate the level of squalour which would provoke ME to make such a statement.

So we got it fixed. Or rather the landlord’s pal, Mr Sun, got it fixed for us. New motor. All well and good.

Then one night last week, when Peter was in Harbin, I was (ironically) hanging out some washing when I heard a sound like water gushing. Knowing I hadn’t left any taps running, I ignored it, telling myself it must be ‘coming from upstairs’ even though I could tell fine well it was in our flat somewhere. Denial’s great, isn’t it? Sadly after half an hour, on my third check of the kitchen sink from which the sound seemed to be emanating, I was forced rudely out of denial by the large puddle in which I found myself standing. Opening the cupboard under the sink, I found a geyser coming from somewhere up at the top of the cold water pipe. Fortunately taps in China all seem to be fitted with their own individual stopcock so I didn’t have to go searching the place for a mains tap, or do without water until the following day or anything. But I did have to do an excessive amount of mopping, putting down of old newspapers, and making phone calls to Sherry, our new interpreter, to get Mr Sun to send out a plumber. Grrr again.

Anyway it turns out Mr Sun is a bit of a dab hand at the old plumbing himself. He came round and mended it personally the next day, producing from nowhere a length of new pipe, and a giant sealant gun with which he fixed the sink more securely in place, and he even cleaned gritty stuff out of the tap for me. All this was conducted with – on his part - facial expressions and gestures of contempt (for the cowboys who put it in, I hope, rather than for me), and on mine the exclamations of shock, gratitude and general female helplessness which, I’m pleased to be able to report, seem to work with tradesmen the world over.

All was quiet for a couple of days, until it was time for Washing Machine Revisited. I’d used it maybe five or six times since its repair, but clearly it was too much. Grrrrrr once more. This time the motor was turning, but the fan belt must have either slipped or snapped off, as I discovered it had completed the best part of a towels wash without the drum turning at all. Result: several sopping wet and not fully rinsed towels, which I had to hang up in the shower (where they acquired rust marks) to drip dry, and then put on the washing line on the balcony (where they acquired black marks from the pollution) to get wet again in the rain.

Ah, the rain. After 15 years in Scotland I should really be used to it, but it’s amazing how six months in Harbin’s dry inland climate can lull you into a place where the notion of water suddenly falling out of the sky is a surprise. I think I only saw actual rain twice in the whole time we were there, and snow no more than half a dozen times. Shanghai, on the other hand, is not only on the coast (like Edinburgh), but is in a sub-tropical zone. Which means that when it rains, it RAINS. Especially in spring.

It’s obviously such a big part of life here that they have a well-developed umbrella culture, with umbrella stands in offices and restaurants, and staff handing you specially-shaped plastic bags to put over your brolly when you enter shops. Why do they not do this in Scotland? Why? The Shanghaiers, particularly those riding bikes or scooters, all wear sensible waterproof ponchos which cover them and their vehicle almost entirely. (They also work for baby bumps!) Again, why don’t we do this back home? The denizens of Edinburgh seem to prefer to walk along with water dripping off their noses and all their clothes soaked through rather than risk looking uncool in a funny mac. But then I suppose looking uncool isn’t much of a consideration for Chinese people; let’s face it, with the poodle perms and bad shorts most of them are starting from what my doctor would call ‘a rather low base’ as it is.

Unfortunately, when we went out to the supermarket last Sunday, I had yet to acquire my bump-covering poncho, and had only a rather old and not-terribly-waterproof-any-more coat and a pair of even older, suede Converse trainers to put on. Peter had his Harbin outdoor coat with the ceramic beads, but ceramic beads ain’t much use against the kind of downpour we encountered. At least not when it takes 15 minutes to get a taxi to the shops, and about 40 minutes – in the dark and in absolute driving rain, soaked to the skin and carrying heavy food shopping, all of which got drenched and had to be dried out on the dining table – to get one home again.

The trouble was that people kept stealing our spot by dodging ahead of us and hopping into taxis which by rights should have been ours, due to our inability to hop anywhere on account of my bump and the shopping. Two men in unmarked cars did pull up and offer us lifts (in English) but we declined in case they were bilingual axe murderers or – more likely – just saw an opportunity to take us for a huge amount of money. By the time we got home we’d have won first prize at an international rat-drowning festival, and all the contents of my handbag –which was done up – were soggy, including my passport. Grrrrrrrrrr. And yuck, as well.

So today Mr Sun (whose name and general all-round helpfulness keep making me sing the Ace of Base song Dr Sun - ‘Give me Doctor Sun, he’s my man’) was due to come round to sort out some bills with us. We’d reported the broken washing machine and he’d arranged for someone to come and repair it at the same time, when Sherry would also be here to explain the problem if required. (He also said that if it broke again they’d just get us a new one, which was a bit of a result as that’s what I wanted in the first place anyway).

They were all supposed to be here between 5 and 6pm. Which is why when the doorbell rang at lunchtime I ignored it. Now I know at least one reader who will sympathise when I admit that I was in my jammies. If anyone else is shocked, then my excuse is that I’m pregnant and don’t sleep well at night (partly because the bed in Harbin was the size of a football pitch so we’re having some trouble getting used to a normal sized one again!), so I often tend to sleep in in the morning. Anyway, if it was the washing machine people, they were too early, and if it wasn’t, then it would be someone speaking Chinese at me about something unknown. So I thought they could just come back later. Which they did. Ten minutes later. And another ten minutes after that. And again after that, each time ringing the doorbell more insistently than the time before.

On the third attempt, they started to hammer on the door as well. By now it had reached the point where I couldn’t have opened the door even if I’d wanted to, as it would have been obvious that I’d been there all along. But when they actually started to rattle the door handle to see if the door was locked I decided I’d rather not open it, as whoever was outside was clearly a psychopath. This went on for a full fifteen minutes before Peter (whom I’d phoned in a state of some alarm!) came home and let the man – who had indeed come to fix the washing machine, four hours early – in.

And then, just to round it all off, while he was here, we noticed that window cleaners were shinning down the outside of the building on ropes, and had just about reached our floor when Peter saw water pouring in through the ceiling just inside one of the windows (fortunately the one in the utility room where there’s a drain in the floor and we keep a mop & bucket anyway). When Mr Sun finally came, we mentioned this with some concern. ‘Oh that’s ok’, came the reply. ‘That won’t happen again. They only wash the windows every two years.’

Dad, if they’ve got the internet up there and you’re reading this, if I ever laughed at you then I’m sorry. I understand now. I never thought I could hate the wet stuff so much.

Now, can I hear something dripping?

Sweeping changes

Well. Tomorrow, Sunday 5th April, is my birthday. I shall be (apparently, so they tell me) 41.

Forty-one. Was a more depressing age ever invented? Like so many of its odd-number fellows, it sits uncomfortably between two even numbers each rich in cultural references. The only cultural reference point I can think of for 41 is that it was the age of the unfortunate character of Timothy, played by Ronnie Corbett, in the 80s sitcom Sorry!, which isn’t too great a role model. It was bad enough last year, when I stared and stared at all the cards on the mantlepiece with a large number on the front, wondering who on earth they could belong to as they quite clearly had nothing to do with me. But now I’m not just 40. I’m IN MY FORTIES. Last year I had to come to terms with the notion that I would be ticking a new box, the 40-49 one, on most forms from then on. Then last night I had the horrible realisation that there might even be forms with a 41-50 box which, as of tomorrow, will include me. I’m probably not even allowed another birthday party for the next nine years, and when I do have one, all my friends will be old. As well.

Here in China, this weekend also marks the annual Qingming (pronounced Ching-ming) or Tomb Sweeping festival. This is one of those ‘does-exactly-what-it-says-on-the-tin’ type of festivals when people, er, sweep tombs and generally tidy up and tend their family graves. They also make offerings at the graves in honour of their ancestors. It’s very similar in sentiment to the better-known Mexican Dia de los Muertos (though sadly without the fabby costumes, Watty & Mark!) As one of China’s few solar festivals it always falls on the 15th day after the Spring Equinox, i.e. the 4th or 5th April. Great. Just what I need when I’m feeling a bit sensitive about being middle-aged – a festival of death on my birthday.

Tomb Sweeping Festival was only designated a public holiday for the first time in 2008, when the traditional May Day ‘Golden Week’ was shortened to three days, and you get the impression that people don’t know quite what to do with it yet, especially as it falls on a weekend this year anyway. If the Scottish government ever gets around to making St Andrew’s Day a holiday like they keep threatening, the Scots will know exactly what to do – go to the pub and generally celebrate an extra day’s skiving off work – but the Chinese, as a largely workaholic nation, seem ill-at-ease with the concept of leisure time and appear to find it difficult to relax. They’re forever working at weekends to make up time and, with the exception of Chinese New Year, seem a bit confused by the idea of days off. This is no doubt why China is one of the few countries whose economy is not currently in recession, what financial problems they do have all being of external making.

Anyway, the only evidence of anything unusual going on this weekend has been the fires on street corners where people burn papers bearing blessings and gifts for their ancestors, such as we saw at New Year, only on a slightly wider scale – in Harbin anyway. For the past couple of evenings they were to be seen in every gutter, and the aftermath – in the form of piles of charcoal – was much in evidence this morning. Our ‘corner shop’ downstairs was selling bundles of brown paper specifically for the purpose. As we drove through town on our way to the airport today, there was a bit of a holiday mood - though that may have been due to the unseasonably warm spring sunshine which has made all the ice and snow disappear in the space of a couple of days – and on a road out of town which presumably led to a cemetery there was a mile-long tailback.

Then we arrived into Shanghai tonight in a downpour worthy of a Scottish summer, which would have extinguished the brightest of sacrificial flames and was distinctly non-tomb-sweeping weather. Part of the tradition involves picnicking, chatting and possibly flying kites by your family’s grave once you’ve done your sweeping, but it really wasn’t the day for that so I guess they all went home and ate the food they’d put out for the ancestors there. Apparently they only put the rubbish food like dry biscuits out on the actual graves in case ‘bad spirits’ (or very much alive scroungers, more like) help themselves to it, and save all the good stuff for indoors.

In many ways it’s a fitting conclusion to this week, which for me anyway has had a bit of an ‘end of days’ feel to it. This was my final week in our Harbin flat until the autumn, and I’ve been feeling quite emotional about it. Everything seems to be changing. Even B&Q is closing, a victim of the credit crunch, apparently. Said establishment, we found with some hilarity on our arrival in Harbin, was right on our doorstep, between our flat and Peter’s office. You’ll appreciate the comedy in this when you realise that Peter, who hates DIY with a passion (despite being, unfortunately for him, rather good at it), nearly tore his hair out having to visit our nearest branch in Edinburgh almost weekly in the run-up to our departure last year in an effort to finish our blighted bathroom refurbishments. Anyway, B&Q Harbin will remain open only as long as stocks last – which won’t be long if the swarms of locust-like bargain hunters fighting over humidifiers and buckets reduced by 20% last night were anything to go by.

I hasten to point out that I’m not particularly emotional about the closure of B&Q. I may be hormonal but it hasn’t got that bad – yet! I have however been stressed by several things. The first was trying to book a cheapish hotel in Kyoto at the height of their sakura (cherry blossom) season. After fruitless attempts via several useless websites with non-real-time booking systems, we had to grovel to Peter’s Japanese colleague to find us somewhere, after initially turning down his offer of help because he didn’t seem to believe us when we said we didn’t want to pay £275 a night.

The second was having to leave Harbin just as spring is starting in earnest after five months of grim winter. I’m gutted about this. Unlike all other migratory creatures, we are flying south for the summer. Not sure what species of swallow that makes us – not African or European, that’s for sure – maybe just perverse? Though in a supreme irony, as the infamous Harbin heating has another two weeks to go before it’s switched off, it’s been a like a sauna in our flat there this week, while in Shanghai we still need to wear winter clothes indoors and take them off when we go out!

But the worst part was having to clean the flat. Cleaning rented flats before moving out of them is something I deeply resent, especially when I then have to scrub the new one from top to bottom as I did last week because the previous (western!) inhabitants had left it caked in ingrained grime. In all my years of moving house, I’ve tried in vain to establish whether there is in fact some code of practice which states whether it should be the outgoing or the incoming tenants who do the cleaning. As an outgoer, I’ve always done it under the unspoken but ever-present threat of the Lost Deposit, only to find that the people moving out of my new place had taken this threat a lot less seriously than me – no doubt with good reason, as I’ve never heard of anyone actually losing a deposit due to poor cleaning. Of course we’re not really moving out of Harbin, but a vague threat that the landlady might want to come in some time to have a look at the place was enough for me, so I’ve dusted and hoovered and mopped (well ok, Peter mopped) all week with spectacularly bad grace.

Our Chinese colleagues, and other non-British westerners such as Big Boss (who’s Australian), can’t understand why we don’t get an ayi – a kind of maid-cum-nanny who seems to be de rigueur for all westerners in Shanghai. How do you explain to a foreigner the peculiarly British angst which surrounds the whole question of employing domestic servants, especially ones of a different (whisper it) race? It smacks so strongly of colonialism and the class system that we wring our hands in liberal anguish, convinced that by paying other people to do menial tasks which we’re quite capable of doing ourselves we’re somehow suggesting we’re socially superior to them, despite the fact that this is what goes on in workplaces every day. Couple this late-20th/early 21st century crisis of conscience with the very mid-20th century view, inculcated in us by our mothers and grandmothers, that the worst fate that could ever befall a woman is to be judged by others for having a dirty house, and you see why it becomes impossible to hire a cleaner, who by definition will see us at our worst – unless we clean up before she comes, obviously.

I grew up in the kind of home which got cleaned when – and only when – we had visitors. When we visited others’ houses they had no doubt been cleaned the day before as well. (The trick is not to do it the same morning; that way they won’t smell the polish and so will never guess.) For my mother’s benefit I must point out that this is not meant as a criticism! Quite the opposite, in fact. It was a spectacularly convenient arrangement which allowed everyone to maintain the charade that their house was immaculate at all times while not actually doing much work – though the question of the impromptu guest was always a fraught one, of course. Despite now seeing the inherent ridiculousness of this - and wondering why these people were our friends anyway if these were the criteria on which we judged each other – I have nonetheless embraced the same practices wholeheartedly in my own adult life: something which both amuses and infuriates my husband, whose own family had a much healthier take-us-as-you-find-us approach to the whole business.

So the idea of letting a Chinese woman into my house to poke about in my toilet and behind my fridge, all smiles and Ni hao’s while probably thinking ‘God these westerners are filthy heathens’ fills me with horror. Even if what she’s actually thinking is ‘Thank goodness these westerners are such filthy heathens or I wouldn’t have a job’. Or even just ‘Thank goodness I’ve got such a cushy job where all I have to do is clean up after these oddballs’. For the Chinese, you see, it is – oh so ironically – all just a question of market economics. We can pay, they want a job; what’s the problem?

So perhaps I should just count my blessings. Qingming Festival is also about celebrating spring, planting, and new life. I may be 41 in a few hours, but in a few months, by some miracle – having genuinely thought I’d left it too late – I’ll be having a baby. A sweeping change indubitably, but the most amazing one to happen to me yet. And tomorrow, as my birthday treat, we’re going to Japan: first to Tokyo for a few days, and then to Kyoto, which is a place I’ve always wanted to visit. Japan may be as near to here as going to France is from the UK, but it’s still fantastic.

Changes. Like the man says, turn and face the strain. It’s not all bad.

Meltdown

Temperatures in Harbin on Tuesday hit a giddy 9 degrees centigrade. The result of this was that within 24 hours every trace of snow and ice had vanished from the roads and pavements, which were suddenly damp and visible for the first time in months. There was still plenty of snow around, mainly in huge blackened piles where efficient security guards (such as the ones in the building across the street from us - ours aren't quite as on the ball, though they do their best) have repeatedly piled it over the last few months, so that it now stands about four feet high all around the edges of the courtyard. There was also snow on the grassy areas, but the odd tuft of (brownish) green was even beginning to poke through there, along with a few forgotten leeks, of course.

For the whole of the last couple of weeks, with the thermometer see-sawing either side of the zero mark, things have been gradually turning to mush. I stepped on one unavoidable sheet of ice the other day, only to find it was the thin skin on a puddle and I was almost up to my ankles in dirty water. The icy pavements used not to be a hazard to walk on: the surface of the ice being quite dry, there was none of the slipperiness we generally associate with ice. All this has changed though, making walking and driving a bit more of a gingersome exercise, though fortunately there were ice-free patches in between.

But by Tuesday, like I said, suddenly we were - for all practical purposes - ice-free. People were walking about in ordinary jackets rather than huge fur coats, the sun was shining, and there was an audible dripping sound. I remembered that last year, when we were considering moving to Harbin, we used to keep a watch on the BBC Weather site to see the temperature here each week. After three months of minus 20, suddenly one week in March it was minus 10, then zero, then plus 10, in a matter of a couple of weeks. Finally, I thought, that moment has arrived once again. Yippee!

But then yesterday it snowed. And snowed. And snowed and snowed and snowed. For about seven hours. Stephen Fry may tell us that it's a myth that it can be 'too cold to snow', but I think what he probably means (and these guys seem to agree with me) is that it's possible for it to be too dry to snow. This would explain why the majority of the snowfall we've had since arriving in this neo-Siberian outpost has been in November and March - the transitional seasons which tend to be wetter than winter proper. At least that's my theory and I'm sticking to it. Whatever the case, they closed Harbin airport for several hours yesterday. Just as Peter was trying to fly back from Beijing (whither he was whisked once again not four days after returning via there from the UK!). You'd think Harbin, of all places, would have worked out a way of keeping airports open in bad weather by now, but it seems not. So he and Boss were stranded in Beijing for four hours, finally arriving home at 1am. More meltdown.

Which is what my life feels like at the moment. This has been a week of relentless stress regarding our new flat in Shanghai. God I hate China sometimes. You can't get a straight answer out of anybody. Ask them a question and they'll just fob you off or even blatantly lie through their teeth to tell you what you want to hear, hoping you won't pursue the matter. Then if you do, they'll deny all knowledge of the conversation. Anything which avoids them having to actually DO something. This makes me want to SCREAM!!!!!

An example: one of the items on our carefully compiled list of 'must-have' requirements for our new apartment was that we wanted broadband internet. I need to blog!! Oh, and Peter occasionally needs to work from home but that's obviously far less important! So, when I went to look round some apartments the other week, this was more or less the FIRST question I asked in every place I went into. There were 6 in total, and the answers went something like this.

Apt 1: 'No, you will have to instal it yourselves. It's very inconvenient.'
Apts 2 & 3: 'We don't know. We can find out. Don't worry.'
Apts 4 [the one we're ha ha supposedly moving into this weekend] and 5: (Slightly irritatedly) 'We can ask the landlord to instal it if you want it. It won't be a problem. Don't worry.'
Apt 6: 'It's included!' (Yippee - except that the apartment in question had a bathroom the size of a postage stamp, and so was no good).

In other words, the person we gave the list to had made no effort to check in advance whether any of these apartments actually had this 'must-have requirement'. Having decided on a place nonetheless, we then had a friend in Shanghai undertake negotiations for us with the landlord's agent, regarding length of lease and so on. In our email to her we specifically mentioned getting the internet connected as a pre-requisite. She specifically didn't mention anything about it in her reply, so assuming all was well, we went ahead and got the contract signed and paid a deposit plus three months' rent up front, which is what you have to do in the face of constant threats that they'll give the place to someone else if you don't.

So this week, with the contract due to start on Saturday, we send a list to the Shanghai office of minor things we want sorted out and finalised before we move in. One of which was 'get the internet connected please'.

'The agent says you never mentioned the internet', comes back the reply.

WHAT????!!!! I seem to have mentioned NOTHING ELSE. Anyway, we're mentioning it NOW, so please do it. What's the problem? Yet this was on Monday, and as yet we've received no answer as to whether this apartment for which we have paid and which we're committed to moving into will have any form of internet connection. Despite, I repeat, this being a bloody MUST-HAVE requirement.

Oh, and as if that weren't enough, it turns out that the giant great satellite dish attached to the balcony (also one of the big draws of this apartment after 6 months of CCTV9 !) 'doesn't work'. Er, why not? Why's it there then? Should the landlords not ensure that things are working before putting the place up for rent? What else will turn out not to be working when we arrive?

And all they keep saying is 'Don't worry. It will be OK.'

AARRRGGHHHHH !!!!!! I'm in meltdown.

Blowing hot and cold

Well. I did have two ‘followers’ on my blog, and now it seems I’ve lost one. Something I said?

How can I possibly feel snubbed by someone I’ve never met? I know I never wrote and said hello, for which I apologise – I kept meaning to, honestly. Or is it the prospect of my heading off to Shanghai (temporarily, I repeat, temporarily) for reproductive purposes and thus failing to fulfil the ‘to Siberia’ part of my remit? Either way, just to disappear seems a bit harsh.

While we’re on the subject, thanks to everyone whom I know is reading the blog silently, but I’d love to hear your comments occasionally or see your wee smiling faces (or even that spooky blank head thing) as ‘followers’ on my dashboard. Just to make me feel loved. And thanks to those who do comment (just so you guys don’t start getting huffy as well!); it’s much appreciated.

But back to Siberia. You may remember the saga of our heating. It wasn’t on, we were cold when it wasn’t outside; then it was on, it was freezing outside and we were sweltering hot. Then it went cold in the flat suddenly one weekend about a month ago and we thought, ‘Uh-oh, looks like switch-off day has come’ – but it was a false alarm due, presumably, to a temporary malfunction which was fixed within a day. All of which was totally beyond our control.

Or so we thought.

Last week we happened to be chatting with Peter’s colleague Wildon, a veritable Mr ‘Let-me-just-make-a-couple-of-phone-calls’ who knows everything and everybody and can sort out things you’d never believe possible. We were complaining of the overpowering heat in our flat, especially in view of the fact that a) the temperature in Harbin is now occasionally reaching a balmy 5 (yes, five!) degrees, and more importantly b) the recommended temperature for a baby’s bedroom is 16 – 20 degrees, and if we couldn’t get ours below 27, I could see myself mounting a nightly vigil by the cot lest Baby should expire from overheating or dehydration.

The latter, incidentally, is another problem, necessitating slathering oneself in E45 lotion and having a humidifier constantly belching out cold steam vapours. We first saw these when we came to Shanghai last year and couldn’t understand why people had kettles (often in the shape of Mickey Mouse or similar) boiling continuously on their desks when it was sweltering hot outside! The idea of it being too dry indoors is a difficult concept to get your head around when you’re used to living in soggy Britain where preventing damp is a constant battle. But here we can leave wet washing draped over the back of the furniture to dry overnight. In fact it makes life more comfortable if you do. Very weird.

So anyway, we asked Wildon what date the heating would go off. He reckoned about mid April – 6 months after it came on. Makes sense, but we blanched at the prospect – by April it’s more like 10 – 15 degrees. Sure you can open the windows then, but still.

‘But’, said Wildon, ‘I think you can control the temperature.’

‘Noooooo!’, we said.

‘Usually there is a control somewhere in the kitchen’, he insisted.

‘Where?’ we asked in disbelief. ‘We’ve never seen it. I don’t think so.’

‘Let me just make a couple of phone calls,’ he said.

And sure enough, the following day he spoke to the management of our building and came back with detailed instructions – there may even have been a diagram – as to exactly where these controls were located, what they looked like and how to operate them. And, sure enough, when we looked deep in the recesses of an obscure cupboard in our kitchen, there they were, just as he described. It seems there’s a master lever for adjusting the temperature of the whole flat, and individual taps controlling each room.

NOW they tell us. Kevin did have the good grace to look a little sheepish, seeing as we’ve been going on at him about the heat for months and even had him over here a couple of weeks ago trying to fathom out our quite unfathomable air conditioning system.

Unfortunately what there wasn’t was any clue as to which control was for which room, so we decided to experiment with the master lever. Peter turned it as far as it would go without removing a shelf, and we waited. And waited. Twelve hours later the thermometer still said 27°, so he took the shelf out and turned it a bit more, and we waited again.

Next day it was 26°, so he hit the lever with a shoe until it would turn no further. This time, within a few hours, the temperature still read 26° but the heat which we can normally feel from the floor was notable by its absence. We concluded he’d actually turned it off, and that the ambient warmth we could feel was just residual build-up due to four months of super-heatedness and the fact that the flat’s very well insulated (if you ignore the window with the broken catch which we’ve had to both tape and glue shut). So he pushed the lever back up to the first position he’d tried, and we waited once more.

On Monday I was warm. It said 25°. I had to put a cardigan on in the evening but that was ok. Tuesday I woke up feeling a touch chilly. I put on a long-sleeved top indoors for the first time in ages. Then Peter left for the UK. I tentatively suggested turning the heating back to its original full setting (as it was still minus 10° at night) and trying to work out instead which dial controlled the future baby’s room, but he said we should ‘let it settle’.

On Tuesday night I needed a thicker cardigan. This was quite enough settling as far as I was concerned. I went to the exciting new controls and tried to turn the lever anti-clockwise to turn it back up. Could I budge it? Not one millimetre. As if it had never been designed to move. On Wednesday morning I actually had cold feet, and by Wednesday evening I was in a serious winter woolly and starting to worry how I’d get through the week. The floor felt cold. I felt cold. The thermometer, dammit, still read 25°. But no way was it 25°.

Action stations were called for. I pulled the shelf out of the cupboard so as to get a better purchase on the thing, donned Peter’s ski gloves, and manœuvering (sp?) my little pregnant self into a most ungainly position on the floor and half inside the cupboard, I gripped the top of the pipe with both hands and pushed on the lever with both thumbs and all of my inconsiderable force. At the third attempt it moved a centimetre or two. After a couple of minutes to get my breath back I tried again, and after another two or three attempts moved it a fraction more, so that it’s now just short of what it originally was.

The conclusion? The thermometer is creeping back up. I’m sweating again, but not as much as before, and anyway I don’t care. Baby will be fine, we’ll find the control for that room, buy a free-standing air conditioning unit if we have to, and humidify the place within an inch of its life.

I do so wish I was going to be here in the summer. Summer in Harbin is lovely, but by the time I come back we’ll have to start this whole bloody heating rigmarole all over again. Anyway, what's the point of making it centrally controlled if it's, well, not?

Let’s just hope Shanghai’s air conditioning systems are more user-friendly.

International events

So, the 24th Winter Universiade has been and gone. The closing ceremony – a pile of boring speeches and lots of people in white floating around, mainly - was last night. We couldn’t get to Pizza Hut because of it! It’s an outrage.

Anyway, as promised to myself I went to one event last Sunday, namely some figure skating (ice dance original dance and pairs free skating to be precise). A bit girly, I’m afraid, and not my first choice as I prefer more exciting events like short-track speed skating or that thing with the tea-tray that I mentioned before, but needs must when you’re short of time and Chinese language skills and the pavements are all covered in ice and snow. Still, apart from an office outing to the races I’d never been to a live sporting event before, so I reckoned it would be an experience.

It was.

You know how I told you Harbin was hoping to bid for the 2014 Winter Olympics? It turns out I was wrong and that should have been 2018. Well, sorry to break it to you, my dear Harbiner friends, but maybe you should make it, like, 2068? Perhaps that would give you enough time to work out what’s actually involved in hosting an international event.

The key word here is ‘international’. Now I’m the first to admit I’ve been lazier than a narcoleptic sloth when it comes to making any attempt to learn Chinese. In fact I’ve made none. I can say more or less the same things now as I could 6 months ago, namely ‘Hello’, ‘Goodbye’, ‘Thank you’, ‘Receipt please’ (very important!), ‘Here’ (to taxi drivers), ‘Where is it?’ (not anything specific, so not that helpful really), and occasionally if I really put my mind to it I can manage ‘I don’t understand’, which we’ve proved is more useful than Peter’s ‘I don’t speak Chinese’ said in perfect Chinese, because they never believe him! This is entirely my own fault. I know this.

But you’d think, wouldn’t you, that if you’ve got several thousand foreign athletes and their entourages coming to your city, and you’re therefore expecting some foreign spectators, and you’ve gone to the trouble of creating an English version of the website for the event, that there might have been some attempt to make the thing accessible to non-Chinese speakers? I’m thinking along the lines of maybe some signage in English? English-speaking volunteers to assist the confused, à la Beijing Olympics, that sort of thing?

No.

And you’d probably imagine that if said English website appears to have a booking facility on it - albeit one without any means of payment, but that’s understandable in a cash-based economy where few people use credit cards – that you would maybe inform the ticket office that people might be turning up with order numbers taken from this website, expecting to collect pre-booked tickets, as promised.

No.

And you might even, in a radical move, make the location of said ticket office prominent, or at the very least let your staff operating in other parts of the venue nearby know where it is, in case anyone asks. And make sure these staff speak English, in case ditto.

No.

And indeed make the entrance to the venue itself obvious. And have concession stands selling food (western as well as Chinese, maybe – you know, just hot-dogs or something, I’m not asking for the moon here). And a well-signposted – no, let’s say several well-signposted – souvenir shops or stalls, with English-speaking staff. Oh and have English-speaking staff in the ticket office, just in case the non-Chinese-speaking would-be spectators should ever stumble across it.

No, no, no and no.

Here’s how it went.

I go on the website and book a ticket (so I think), at the end of which transaction it gives me an order number. We’ve never got around to buying a printer for the house here so I write the order number down on a piece of paper. I am told to bring this order number, and my passport, to the ticket office at the International Conference Centre to collect my ticket. I had planned to do this in advance of the actual event, but as the skating was to take place at the same venue, and as Peter pointed out that the Chinese don’t expect to plan anything in advance, I was persuaded to wait until the day of the competition itself before venturing forth.

So last Sunday afternoon I duly tramp through the snow to the place where the Conference Centre is (next to our supermarket), only to realise I don’t actually know where the entrance is. I search for signs either to the event or to the ticket office. There are none, but some red LCD lettering above a couple of doors indicates that the adjoining hotel is indeed something to do with the Winter Universiade. Avoiding the one which appears to be for delegates only, I approach the other door. This is blocked by several security guards, none of whom appear to be older than 14 as is the norm here, larking around in the doorway. On seeing me, they look at each other and after a moment’s whispering they laughingly push forward the only one who can speak any English. (This is also quite a common reaction we get.)

‘May I help you?’ he says haltingly.

‘Yes’, I reply. ‘Could you tell me where the ticket office is please?’

‘Ticket office…’ he repeats wonderingly. He thinks a moment, then points towards the ‘delegates’ door. ‘This way please’.

‘Here?’ I reply in some scepticism, but he seems adamant, so off I go.

It only takes a second to work out I’m in the wrong place. There’s a red carpet, security screening, a desk with information packs, uniformed attendants with security passes around their necks. This is clearly not the place for Joe Public.

One chap springs forward and says in apparently fluent English, ‘Good afternoon madam. May I check your card please?’, indicating his security pass.

‘No, I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I don’t have a card. I just want to pick up a ticket. Could you please tell me where to go?’

‘Ticket….’, he repeats, just as wonderingly as the first chap. He looks around helplessly for a minute, then urgently beckons a colleague across. This chap really does speak a little English, so I try again.

‘Ah,’ says Chap 2. ‘You go out of this door and you turn, ah, right? Yes, right. You will see hotel called the Hua Ha Hotel’ (turns to friend) ‘Hua Ha Hotel?’ (Friend shrugs). He continues, ‘You can collect ticket here’.

There is now only about 10 minutes to go before the skating starts. I repeat these instructions and thank him. Retracing my steps past the first door, I go round the corner and come upon an obscure and unlikely-looking door, with a very small, indistinct and ambiguous sign which could possibly be interpreted as meaning one can purchase tickets inside. The door is virtually impossible to open but I fight my way in.

Now maybe I’ve been spoilt by living in Edinburgh, but when I’m told to go to a box office to collect a ticket booked online, I imagine something like the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Box Office. A long but patient roped-off queue; banks of computers manned by hyper-efficient staff calling ‘Next’ and turning over thousands of customers in an hour by printing off tickets in batches thanks to their state-of-the-art computer system.

Guess what? No.

This ticket office turns out to be one tiny, dingy room with one tiny, dingy computer, manned by one harassed girl and a bloke who looks like he doesn’t work there but has just dropped by to chat to his pal and is watching with interest while she does her job, and occasionally trying to help despite not having a clue what he’s doing (another common set-up in Chinese shops). A group of excited Chinese are gathered around Girl with Computer, one man waving a bunch of tickets and all shouting.

I hang back and attempt to wait while they resolve their dispute, but after a minute or two, Girl with Computer’s Helpful Friend spots me and beckons me forward. I present my order number. He stares at it in some perplexity.

After a while, the excitement of there being a westerner in the shop distracts the shouting group from whatever other excitement had been preoccupying them, and the hubbub dies down. Helpful Friend shows my paper to Girl. She grabs it with both hands and stares at it. She starts to follow the numbers with her finger, muttering under her breath and shaking her head in utter incomprehension as though I had given her a scroll in ancient Aramaic. I attempt to explain. She asks me something. Not knowing what else to do, I present my passport as instructed by the website. She checks this with a little more confidence, thanks me and hands it back. Having thus, apparently, concluded our business, she returns her attention to the shouters. We have reached an impasse.

After a couple of minutes, seeing I am still waiting, Helpful Friend tries again to decipher my paper but is hampered by the fact that he has taken it from me upside-down. I turn it round and try again to explain what I want. Eventually a woman from the shouting group leans on my shoulder and asks me something urgently. I shrug. She runs into a back office and drags out a young woman with long, highlighted, fluffy bunches in her hair which exactly match her long, highlighted fur coat. She has her arm round this girl and is laughing and shouting something at her in an encouraging manner. She pushes her forward.

‘Can I help you?’ says Fluffy Bunches.

‘Oh yes please!’ I exclaim in relief. ‘I booked a ticket on the computer. This is my order number. I just want to collect the ticket and I was told I could get it here.’

She, too, grabs the paper with both hands and stares and stares at it. ‘Online?’ she says.

‘Yes!’ I cry, ‘I booked it online!’ but still she stares.

‘But, what is the date?’ she asks eventually.

‘Today’, I say in some desperation. ‘Now!’

‘Now? Figure skating?’

‘Yes!’ I reply. At last we’re getting somewhere.

But she’s still frowning and staring at the paper. ‘But, how much do you want?’ she asks.

I think for a minute. How much do I want? Not much really, just the love of my husband, the assured safety and health of those I love, world peace, enough money to live on comfortably without ever having to work again, maybe a big house in the country, a cat would be nice…before I realise what she means is How many do I want.

‘Oh’, I reply. ‘One. One ticket.’ I hold up one finger for emphasis and smile pleadingly.

She turns to Girl with Computer. ‘Blah blah-blah blah blah blah blah’ (indicating me) ‘blah blah, blah, blah blah blah-blah’ (indicating computer and waving vaguely in outside direction), ‘blah blah blah blah. Blah.’ (facial expressions clearly implying, ‘Go on, go on, go on, just do her a favour, for me, eh?’) ‘Blah-blah. You pay cash?’ (Me, startled), ‘Yes, I’ll pay cash’, ‘Blah blah blah blah-blah. One hundred and fifty. Here is your ticket.’

‘Oh thank you!’ I say. ‘But, where do I go?’

‘Please, follow me!’ she says. The woman who fetched her seems to find this highly amusing and embraces her again, repeating ‘Follow me! A-ha-ha-ha-ha! Follow me! Ha ha ha!!’ Meanwhile I’m attempting to pay for my hard-won ticket while she tries to drag me out of the door, saying ‘Let’s go, let’s go!’ I just about manage to hand over my 150 RMB to Laughing Woman, who hands it to Girl with Computer, and thank everyone, whereupon they all happily resume shouting and we make our exit.

It turns out that by pure chance Cassie (for such is my new friend’s name) is also going to see the figure skating. She leads me outside and down the steps into the shopping centre, which seems to be the wrong way, but I dutifully follow. We are accompanied by her friend who walks the whole considerable distance backwards in front of us taking hundreds of photos of us both, even after Cassie asks her to stop. She pauses to buy some Chinese flags, and gives me one. We go through the shopping centre and walk up the escalator which is never switched on and appears to go nowhere, at the top of which we meet up with Cassie’s boyfriend, bearing bags of bread.

After about a half-mile trek we join up with the entrance where the rest of the public (99.99% of them Chinese, I wonder why!) are filing in from outside. A guard lifts a barrier to let us through. We go through security like at an airport. After about another half-mile we reach the auditorium and Cassie tells me which area I can find my seat in. I thank her profusely and tell her, truthfully, that I could never have found it without her. ‘It is my pleasure,’ she replies in great seriousness.

My issues did not end here. There was the health & safety issue (trailing wires everywhere, a large wooden ramp half-covering a staircase for no apparent reason and over which I had to climb, thus nearly pitching head-first onto the ice rink), the seat numbering issue (that in which I was told to sit bearing no obvious relation to the number on my ticket), the lack of food & drink issue, and the souvenir stall issue, which involved queueing to get a number which you then took to another desk to get your goods, but not being able to find out the price of anything before joining the long queue – it seems the Chinese can queue to get in a queue, but not at any other time.

But the skating was good, if a little riddled with falling-over mishaps. It turned out that everyone had come to see two particularly good Chinese pairs skaters who were streets ahead of everyone else and won by miles. The crowd were the most partisan I’ve ever heard, cheering wildly whenever anybody Chinese did anything, and pretty much ignoring everyone else. After the Chinese Pairs pair had won, everybody left (including me, it must be said, but mainly because I was cold and hungry and Peter was due home from a business trip), leaving the unfortunate male solo skaters to compete in front of a virtually empty auditorium.

So a fun time was had, but not quite in the way I expected. And the Winter Olympics? Maybe next century.

Stop Press!

Talking of international events, we have a little one of our own to tell you about, for those of my readers who haven’t yet been privy to this information. In July we will be bringing a new small international person into the world. Yes I’m 21 weeks pregnant, and planning to give birth in Shanghai – hence our frequent visits there for the past couple of months, for me to attend a western clinic.

Being pregnant in Harbin has given rise to some interesting experiences, such as trying to buy a pregnancy test in a Chinese chemist (I ended up drawing a fat stick-person with a question mark over their head!) and a scary visit to a Chinese state-run maternity hospital. So we opted for Shanghai where you get English-speaking doctors and we know lots of people who can help us out. We’ll be decamping to live there for 6-8 months from the end of March.

Which leaves me with a dilemma, blog fans. My blog is called ‘From Scotland to Siberia’, and I’ll be deserting Siberia for much warmer climes for a while. I wish I could do it the other way round – summer in Harbin and winter in Shanghai would be SO much more pleasant, weather-wise – but Baby (and airline regulations) won’t let me.

So can you forgive me if I write about Shanghai instead for a bit? Peter will still be making frequent visits up north so he can report back. And with my blogging friend at Living the Hai Life about to return to Blighty, maybe I can fill her gap a little. So don’t desert me, please. Shanghai is fun. And we’ll be back in Siberia in the autumn!

Grim up north

In the course of his work, Peter sometimes has to travel to see customers. Last week he made his second trip to Yi’an, which is about 180 miles north of Harbin and thus about 180 miles colder and grimmer. People in the villages nearby drive little three-wheelers and live in huts, each with its own pigsty attached. To give you an idea – and to satisfy those blog fans who crave pictures of the grittier aspects of modern China – here are a couple of photos. The temperature gauge one shows the temperature outside the car at about 10pm one night a few weeks ago, I hasten to point out, but I felt you needed to see it for the record!

The trip takes 4 hours by car on a good day, seven on a bad one when roads are closed by snow or suchlike. Potholes, and other hazards such as the occasional very large pig in the road, abound. Luckily we are blessed with Mr Li who is so besotted with his people-carrier with its fur-lined seats that you can see him physically wince every time he drives over the slightest bump. I swear if it weren’t for Mr Li I would be a nervous wreck by now. He is without doubt or exception the best driver in China, by about a million miles.

Of course on occasion we do have to endure less comfortable modes of transport such as the infamous Shanghai Van (or the Sciatica-Mobile, as I’ve decided to christen it) which not only lacks seatbelts or suspension but also reeks of farm produce. This is the vehicle which they sent to pick us up from Shanghai airport the very first time we visited China to see if we wanted to live here, and so were presumably attempting to impress us! Lovely. But after having my bones rattled one time too many, I think I’ve managed to put a stop to that one by saying if it ever shows up there to collect us again I’ll let its tyres down and wait at the airport until they send something else. Big Boss now says if we phone his secretary she’ll make sure they send a nice car for us. Job done.

But anyway, to return to the singing farmers of Heilongjiang. By a grave oversight I omitted to tell you about these in my account of the CCTV New Year’s Eve Gala the other week. I’ve no idea how they can have slipped my mind as, being our local boys, they were definitely the highlight of the show for us – so much so that we considered voting for them as our favourite act, as we were continually exhorted to do by the presenters. We could even have won a golden statuette of an ox, I think it was – but in the end we decided this prize should go to someone more deserving.

The Singing Farmers of Heilongjiang appeared courtesy of the Chinese equivalent of Pop Idol or those Graham Norton ‘Let’s-find-a-nobody-who’s-never-been-to-drama-school-or-anything-and-make-them-the-star-of-an-outdated-West-End-musical-thereby-really-pissing-off-proper-hardworking-actors-who’ve-been-desperate-for-a-break-like-that-for-years’ shows. (Sorry, had to get my gripe in there; working in the theatre I have serious issues with this type of programme!).

However I don’t think China’s professional singers need worry too much about the Singing Farmers. One, a chap with a large bouffant and the ubiquitous gold jacket, did a reasonable Pavarotti (when helped out by a proper singer), but then he did train, we were told, by lying with a giant rock on his stomach and repeatedly lifting it using only his diaphragm muscles. The other guy, who had a craggy face and appeared to be still wearing his original Mao suit – and who had actually pulled out of the final of the talent show due to an unexpectedly good harvest - really shouldn’t give up the day job, but he got a good cheer anyway.

So when Peter made his foray into the wilder parts of northern Heilongjiang to meet farmers, I was hopeful that he might run into at least one of these celebs. I told him to listen out for the strains of ‘Nessun Dorma’ rising from the cowsheds and get the autograph of anyone in a Mao suit and/or with a rock balanced on their stomach, just to be on the safe side. But sadly it wasn’t to be.

Instead, he met a man who had a bedroom and en-suite bathroom attached to his office, both decorated from floor to ceiling in baby pink with lace frills all over everything, including the toilet seat. Something tells me if this guy does any singing it’s likely to be less ‘Nessun Dorma’ and more lip-synching to ‘I am what I am’ – but you didn’t hear that from me.

But it’s the food and accommodation on these trips that’s the high point - if measured on an oddness or a ‘let’s experience the real China’ scale, anyway. At one ‘motorway services’ café, on each table there was a dish of whole, raw garlic cloves. Peter (a garlic lover) asked his colleague what these were for. ‘Am I meant to just eat one?’, he said. ‘Oh yes,’ came the reply. ‘If the food is bad, they will help to fight off infection’. Ah. So it’s like that.

The hotel he had to stay in is apparently the best in Yi’an, but would barely merit one star by our standards. Its price list read:

Suite: 260 RMB [approx £26]
Room rate: 100 RMB
O’clock rate: 50 RMB

‘What’s “o’clock rate”?’ Peter asked another colleague, innocently.

‘Ah’, said colleague. ‘This is for when people want to have sex in the afternoons so they get room for an hour.’ Peter must have looked shocked because his pal added, with a twinkle in his eye, ‘Or perhaps they are just sleepy.’

Fortunately - unlike the 5-star hotels of Harbin - they didn’t actually attempt to provide Peter with an, erm, companion. Instead he was given a room which appeared to have no light-switch. Even the landlady didn’t seem to know where it was and spent ten minutes looking for it in the pitch blackness until Mr Li found it, concealed under a shelf. On seeing what the room was actually like, Peter asked to move. The second one wasn’t much of an improvement (only one working light and a quilt of dubious cleanliness), but did come with a fascinating range of freebies. I thought the things which normal hotels habitually give away were weird enough but these take some beating.

Guests were provided with the following [all sic, naturally!]:

- Tissues
- Ashtray
- Two cups and a teabag, but no means of heating water
- Wrigley’s gum and a ‘compressed towel’, displayed together on a little presentation stand
- A packet labelled ‘Men’s underwear’ on one side, and on the other ‘Panties – Comfortable Consideration New Vogue and New Character’
- And best of all: a sachet of ‘Uncomplimentary’ Yibashi High-Grade Bathing Lotion (‘Exclusive sale in high standard hotes’). The instructions suggested that if you ‘pour the liquid into the location where water pours’ and then ‘drench the inside bathtub wet and spread the plastics on it’, then ‘The degrakable plastics inside can be used to prevent your ksin from being direstly contacted bathtub’. Now it’s not often you can say that!! ‘Original Lotion Is Imported From Holland!’ the packaging proudly proclaimed, as if this would inspire you to use it.

And all this for a tenner.

This week he has a meeting with a man called Dr Dung Pan Boo (“but you can call me Dung Pan”). The mind can only boggle.

Bliss

I hardly dare say this, but after three weeks, the firecrackers have finally - whisper it - stopped.

There was one final night of sheer deafening bombardment on Monday, which was 'Lantern Festival', the last official night of the lunar new year celebrations, which falls on the first full moon following the first new moon (hope you're following this). This was complete with not only the biggest full moon in 52 years or something, but also proper fireworks - pretty ones, not just those that go bang. Of course they set them off dangerously near to buildings, as before. In Beijing the staff of CCTV apparently even managed to set fire to their own brand-new building, which would be amusing if it wasn't for the fact that a firefighter got killed in the ensuing blaze.

The noise here went on until about 2am and we thought, 'Oh thank God, from tomorrow it's illegal for them to set these bloody things off for another whole year'. But of course, there were one or two chancers who set some more off on Tuesday, either because they had a few left and just wanted to get one in under the wire, or because they were terminally stupid and didn't know what day it was, I presume.

But by yesterday there was blissful, beautiful, wonderful, heavenly, SILENCE, and the men with brooms who sweep up snow are busy sweeping vast quantities of ash onto the snow so that there are piles of grey stuff everywhere. Not that there's much snow left now since, as of last week some time, it's officially 'spring' and even made it to - wait for it - zero degrees one day!! We nearly got our bikinis out.

It's a shame though; I used to like fireworks - when you only ever got to see (and hear) them TWO NIGHTS A YEAR at the most. But after three whole weeks of being woken up by huge explosions at 8am every day - especially Sundays - and often having them either go on all evening, or else lull us into a false sense of security by being quiet until midnight and THEN starting, I have to say I shall miss them like a hole in the head.

Which is what it felt like sometimes.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for...

Yes, it's Harbin's only claim to world fame - the incredible Ice and Snow Festival!

As an early Chinese New Year celebration, we were taken yesterday on an office jolly - a grand day out, marred only slightly by the intervening meal which was somewhat strange (sliced pig's intestines or duck's tongues, anyone?) and conducted in near silence except for endless boring toasts in which everyone thanked everyone else and looked forward to prosperous business relationships, before it descended into the kind of corporate bonding games which I rate somewhere below root canal treatment in my list of preferred activities.

But the ice and snow sculptures were just FABULOUS. And as it was 'only' minus 13°C, I didn't even feel that cold - but then again I was wearing three thermal vests, two scarves and an indeterminate number of dead sheep. Not to mention the WMEMs, of course.

Simply uploading a few pictures to this blog wouldn't do the thing justice, so if you click below you can see the whole album - just hit 'Slideshow' for the full effect once you're there. I say 'full effect' but you'll have to imagine the (loudly) piped classical music which accompanied it all. Peter and I got some funny looks when they got to 'Bolero' and we started Torvill & Deaning-it on the ice.

Anyway, it's the Snow Festival first (which had a Finnish theme, hence the strong Father Christmas and Moomin motifs), then the Ice Festival - they take place in adjoining parks next to the (frozen) Songhua River, some views of which you can also see. Hard to comprehend, I know, but all the structures which look like the Blackpool Illuminations on acid are made entirely from ice blocks, hewn from that river.

Why? Who knows. Apparently it grew out of a local tradition for making ice lanterns by hollowing out blocks of ice and putting a candle inside. I suppose someone thought, 'Ooh, it might be pretty if we joined a few of these together and put coloured lightbulbs in them', and from there - in just ten years - Harbin's Ice Festival became one of the 'big four' ice sculpture festivals worldwide (the other three being Montreal, Sapporo in northern Japan, and somewhere in Finland). Mainly due to the proximity of the Songhua and its endless supply of ice, Harbin now boasts the biggest annual ice festival in the world.

I am now more convinced than ever that it's the most bonkers place on Earth.

Enjoy our pictures.

So much to blog, so little time

With our festive jaunt home to Blighty hurtling rapidly towards us, there seem to be a million things – well, at least three – each of which I could have written a whole article about but simply don’t have time. There follows, therefore, a smorgasbord of observations about this crazy world in which we find ourselves, which if I don’t get them down now are in danger of falling into the vast black hole that I once laughingly called my memory, never to be seen again.

So. Last week we had to call Building Management out again, when another dodgy bulb tripped all our fuses for the second time. It seems that they’d been trying to get in to see us for several weeks to check our water meter, but every time they came to the door we didn’t understand what they wanted so they hadn’t been able to gain access. We don’t like to call poor Kevin too often.

Anyway it appears that our water meter is low on money. The landlord says he will come ‘sometime’ and put some more money on it. He is unable to tell us when ‘sometime’ will be, despite the fact that we’re going away tomorrow for three weeks, but until then we are ‘not to worry’. This is typical of the Chinese total inability to plan anything in advance. They simply do not, will not, or cannot do it. On the day before our party, at about 4.30pm, Kevin sidled up to Peter looking a bit embarrassed and said sheepishly that ‘the girls’ had asked him to find out if we would have the party that night instead, as it suited them better! Attempting to order diaries and calendars as New Year gifts for his customers, Peter has been frustrated by the lack of any with space to write down appointments. When Kevin saw Peter’s own (British) diary he was baffled. ‘But why would you want to write down what you’re doing in the future?’, he enquired. ‘Chinese people do not do that. Sometimes they think about tomorrow. Or maybe, sometimes, the next day.’

Often Peter arrives at work in the morning to be told he has a meeting with an important client in half an hour’s time, which has just been arranged. They arrive to find about 10 local dignatories, bureau heads, factory bosses and the like who have all assembled at what appears to be a moment’s notice. After the meeting, they progress to an apparently equally impromptu but sumptuous lunch of unidentifiable but delicious dishes, be it at the most expensive restaurant in Harbin or a transport caff in a dodgy rural town (where all conversation stops and all heads turn as Peter walks in). Much ‘Gan bei!’ and general hilarity ensues, even when the interpreter has to leave early, leaving him alone with a group of monolingual Chinese bigwigs. Business here is strongly based on the principle of ‘guan xi’ which translates as ‘business relationship’ but basically seems to mean ‘getting people to trust you by getting drunk with them outside work before anyone signs anything’. No wonder he’s enjoying his job!

Some of the places he’s visited on these jaunts have been eye-openers. Parts of Harbin itself are quite poor, but outside the city it’s another world. Last week he went to Acheng, which he described as ‘like Castleford or Pontefract in the 1970s’ (not, I gather, a recommendation) but which still boasted huge wide streets, impressive amounts of public artworks, and the entrance to the town was guarded by a huge arch, fabulously decorated in vibrant colours. In another place, they had to drive through a market, squeezing between stalls where people were selling frozen meat and fish - frozen by the air temperature, that is; no need for freezers here! They had almost reached the end when a vehicle appeared, blocking their way. With no way to turn round, Mr Li, our ultra-resourceful and ever-smiling driver, reversed the entire length of the market, back between the stalls down the narrow, winding lane, with frozen fish being flung back and forth and a guy on a tricycle behind him, who would only reverse a few yards at a time until Mr Li got out and remonstrated firmly with him. The whole process took about an hour.

Needless to say, the weather fazes the locals not one jot. Peter’s first farm visit took place on the first day that the temperature dropped to minus 11°. Everyone happily tramped about in the snow and ice looking at maize pellets or whatever. In the UK such an event would have been cancelled on the spot. (Though of course this does presuppose that it would have been planned in advance!). But then they were all no doubt wearing the ubiquitous, the redoubtable, the indispensible - Harbin Thermals.

Thermals. God how they love them. Especially longjohns. You could almost hear the collective sigh of relief after they were able to get them on when it got vaguely cold at the start of November. Of course some people hedge their bets and never take them off all year round. We even saw brides wearing them under their wedding dresses on a hot day in May (truly). There are shops selling nothing but. I’m not saying you don’t need them of course – the wind doesn’t half bite through your trousers when you go out otherwise – but the problem is that if you go out, generally you’re going TO somewhere, like the shops, or a restaurant. And the shops and restaurants are BOILING, which makes the wearing of thermals quite unbearable indoors.

At Harbin airport they have countered this problem by supplying little changing booths near the baggage reclaim (with signs in Chinese, English and Russian), for the purposes of changing into your longjohns after arriving from somewhere hot. How brilliant an idea is that? Now if the shopping centres and supermarkets did that, it would be ok. But as it is, you have to put your thermals on immediately before leaving the house and then make a run for it (seeing as it’s constantly 27°C in our flat – and I mean constantly). Then by the time you’ve arrived at your destination and are just about feeling a bit chilly and glad you put them on, you’re back indoors into a super-heated place with huge padded curtains over the doors for insulation, and pouring sweat while carrying your coat around. Something’s not right there. No wonder the locals acclimatise so well to their thermals that they’re terrified to take them off.

But otherwise they’re remarkably well-adapted to the weather. When it snows – which is disappointingly not that often, actually – an army of men with broomsticks materialises from nowhere, and with rapid efficiency they clear the snow from the roads and pavements within what seems like minutes. There’s none of the head-scratching and wondering what this white stuff can be that’s falling out of the sky, which accompanies the UK’s every annual snowfall. Once that’s done, being a very dry climate, there’s no slush to contend with, just icy patches here and there. Still, we do find it quite funny that people are sending us Christmas cards with snow-scenes on and writing things like ‘Bet your weather’s very different to this!!’ inside. Er, no, it’s not. It might be 27°C in our flat, but in the unheated utility room/balcony, a 3-litre bottle of water turned to a solid block of ice overnight.

And talking of solid blocks of ice, preparations for the famous Harbin ice festival would appear to be underway! Yes it seems this is one thing they CAN plan in advance for! So by way of Christmas greetings to you all, here are some pics of the embryonic ice sculptures – or more like ice constructions – which are shooting up around Peter’s office and our flat.

Tomorrow we’re off to Shanghai for the company expats’ Christmas lunch - at the Hilton, no less, where we get to behave like old colonials for a day – and then home for the festive season. So I’ll say Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all, and see you in three weeks.

Tips for the society hostess in China

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the society lady who wishes to create a favourable impression upon her guests shall be expected to provide, in the context of any social function - be it grand or humble - to which she chooses to invite such guests, an evening comprising the following elements: fine wine and ales, stimulating conversation (in which said guests should at all costs be encouraged to mingle and discourse with others not of their prior acquaintance), musical entertainment, and, should she feel sufficiently daring to attempt this, a little communal dancing.

For those ladies as possess the imagination and the fortitude to attempt such a social event in the land of China, however, it must be recommended that a few addenda or annotations to the above advice be inserted, for the mutual benefit of all.

Firstly, a word regarding the guest list and the arrival of said guests. The society hostess in China cannot expect her guests to be ‘fashionably late’. On the contrary, she can expect them, if informed that the festivities will commence at eight o’clock, to meet in B&Q car park at ten minutes to that hour, and arrive all at once. (Note: this may exclude such guests as English Boss, who may choose to make a later entrance, all red face and bare feet, protesting that he has ‘rushed straight from the gym’. Such behaviour is, of course, his prerogative, and must be tolerated.) If the guests have been given prior permission to bring further guests of their own, the hostess should not be perturbed to discover that they will assume this invitation extends to young children, who may thus appear without warning.

Now on the subject of fine wine and ales. Try as she might to encourage her guests to partake of such excellent refreshments, the society hostess will find herself thwarted by their insistence, to a man, that they will take only ‘the non-alcoholic version’ of the mulled wine, please. The author’s proposed solution to this difficulty is simple: do not make a non-alcoholic version. Or at the very least, mention it only very quietly to those for whom alcohol is known to be strictly prohibited. Tell everyone else that the mulling process removes almost all traces of alcohol from the wine.

On the plus side, the hostess will find herself at the end of the evening with almost as much wine and exactly as much beer as she had at the start. This will compensate for the fact that no one - apart, again, from English Boss - will bring any alcoholic beverages with them. They may, of course, bring other gifts, which are most welcome, even if unsought, and will be gratefully received.

The question of stimulating talk provides a greater challenge. It is difficult to sustain a conversation with a person whose two words of one’s native tongue are ‘Hello’ and ‘Bye-bye!’, especially if the only words one knows oneself in their native tongue happen, by unfortunate chance, to be a translation of the exact same two words. The opportunities for philosophical discussion are, under these circumstances, understandably limited. Pointing, gesturing and smiling will only get even the most accomplished of hostesses so far. Of course, conversation may be attempted with those of the guests who do speak English, but these are not always readily identifiable.

The chief difficulty, however, lies in the fact that the art of ‘mingling’ – so crucial to the truly successful social occasion – has yet to be introduced to China. Thus, what may at first appear to be an example of another universal truth – namely, that all parties eventually end up in the kitchen – will prove in fact to be an attempt by the Chinese guests to simulate their own notion of a party by all sitting around a large (and, it must be said, imaginary) table in the dining room, talking amongst themselves at an elevated volume. As English Boss may be heard to point out, the reason why party guests usually gravitate to the kitchen is that this is where the fine wine and ales are generally to be found, but clearly this motivation is not a factor where our abstemious Chinese friends are concerned.

This will leave our host and hostess making an attempt to engage the one other western guest (Wildon’s English teacher) in a discussion regarding the habits and haunts of the local expatriate community. Unfortunately, he is entirely ignorant of such matters and appears, moreover, to wish he was anywhere else but at our hostess’s party, so this proves equally unsatisfying.

In these circumstances it may be considered best to cut straight to the communal dancing and musical entertainment.

These, prefaced by the distribution of the traditional ‘dram’ to all, should be led by mine host – attired, of course, in full Highland regalia (kilt: Lidl, £24.99) – and will feature such delights as the Gay Gordons and a Reduced Virginia Reel. (Note: this is not as enjoyable as the Gender-Confused Eightsome Reel, but this is strictly for the more advanced practitioner). The Chinese guests may, at first, be more willing spectators than participants. One or two may choose the melee as a suitably distracting moment at which to make a swift exit and sit in the car because the hostess’s home is too hot, even though it is minus 22° outside, but with a little persistence most can be induced to join in the fun, and can be heard to remark afterwards that they greatly admired the host’s ‘skirt’ – indeed, that it was the highlight of the evening - and that they had heard that 'Scottish men wore stripy skirts’ but had never actually seen one in the flesh, as it were.

Following this gaiety, a little light flute-playing and a discussion on the technicalities of playing the Chinese flute or dizi may be employed to calm the mood again from that of excitement to one of gentle relaxation.

After quite a lot of this, our hostess may find herself fervently wishing her guests would leave. In this instance, some gracious and well-chosen words to signal that the evening is at an end, and to express her gratitude and pleasure at her guests’ attendance and her dearest wish that she may see them again soon in the near future, are appropriate. Something along the lines of, ‘Come on you ‘orrible lot, get out of my house’. Otherwise she will find herself waiting until one of them plucks up the courage to enquire tentatively whether, at eleven o’clock, it is ‘ok if they leave now?’. Since they consider it rude to leave before ‘the end’ and she considers it rude to tell them it is the end, both sides could be in for a very long night unless someone takes the bull by the horns. And thus, the evening concludes.

Footnote: the consumption, thereafter, of the remainder of the whisky by, say, host and Boss should be approached with caution.

Frozen veg section

Don't know if you can see this, but in case you were wondering - yes, some people DO leave their leeks out in the snow. (They're just to the left of the tree.)

Others keep their cabbages, rotting, on the windowsill of the common stair, which makes a LOVELY smell when you open the front door!

Mad as hatters, all of them.

Oh bloody hell, it's cold

Here are some pics of the snow. These are actually from last week but it's back again now, accompanied by a wind that cuts straight through any part of you that's uncovered, while your teeth and eyeballs feel as though they're about to freeze.

And it's 'only' minus 14. Ha ha ha ha. Nervous laughter.

The robe robbers

Bit of a drama this week. Just when you thought everything was finally starting to settle down for us following the visa debacle, Peter had to go to hospital for an emergency procedure under local anaesthetic to treat an abscess in his colon. I’ll spare you the details, but it wasn’t pleasant. What might be described as a major pain in the arse.

He happened to be in Beijing for the first of three launches which he’d organised for his company. After arriving in considerable agony, he made some fruitless entreaties to BUPA International, who seemed to find the task of locating an English-speaking doctor in China’s capital a little too challenging. Hmmm. Had he consulted the local guidebook in the room, he would have found there are many hospitals to choose from, such as the Shunyi Hospital, the 2nd Shunyi Hospital, the 3rd Shunyi Hospital, or the Longwinded Town Hygienic Service Centre. In the end though he managed to track down a fantastic western hospital who sorted him out. He’s ok now but needs to have a further operation on Monday under general anaesthetic to remove the remainder of the nastiness which they couldn’t reach. However, on the recommendation of the doctor we are flying to Hong Kong for this.

It’s not the ideal way to see the world. Poor Peter has spent the last five days trapped in a Beijing airport hotel, which is a pretty grim fate. No trips to the Forbidden City or the Great Wall for him, on this occasion anyway. I joined him yesterday, laden with summer clothes for our non-sightseeing trip to Hong Kong, where it’ll be in the region of 28-30°C. (It was actually snowing in Harbin when I left yesterday morning). It’s quite warm and sunny here (although the locals all think it’s cold and keep telling us to put our coats on), but we’re limited in our attire as the hotel has a dress code which demands that you don’t wear a ‘singlet’ in public. This immediately made my hackles rise. Peter wondered if he could wear a doublet, but I said that would be twice as bad.

The hospital here have been great and have arranged our flights to and accommodation in Hong Kong, although this required complex negotiations between BUPA International, BUPA (which is different, it seems), and his company. They have booked his surgery, and even emailed him a letter from the surgeon telling him what he needs to bring to the hospital and so on.

Which is where the trouble started.

The letter stated: ‘Please bring with you pyjamas, gown, slippers, toothbrush, toiletries and towel’. Now, Peter doesn’t wear pyjamas. Or slippers. His dressing-gown is at home in Harbin. Ditto all his towels (he knew he’d be staying in hotels where towels are provided, so didn’t bring one, and neither did I).

So, ok, we think. A T-shirt and shorts will pass for pyjamas. Flip-flops will serve as slippers. We could ‘borrow’ a towel from the Hong Kong hotel for a couple of days. Then Peter had a brainwave and decided that before we leave here he would buy one of the nice, white, waffle-weave bathrobes which the hotel provide in the room. The book of guest services expressly states ‘Should you wish to purchase a bathrobe, please contact the Housekeeping Office’. Knowing that Housekeeping’s English wasn’t brilliant, we asked a guy at reception how much the bathrobes cost. It took several attempts to get him to understand what we were talking about, but eventually he phoned Housekeeping, and told us they cost 350 RMB (just under £30), which seemed not unreasonable, but we wanted to consider our finances so we thanked him and returned to our room.

The other reason for hesitating was that we couldn’t remember whether the robes had the hotel logo emblazoned across them in a prominent fashion which would be a bit embarrassing in hospital. However, when we tried to check by looking at the robes in the room, we found that the maid had taken them when she cleaned, and not replaced them. There had been one there at the start of the week, Peter said, which he’d used and it hadn’t been replaced for several days. I used the new one this morning and once again it had disappeared, as sometimes happens.

Having decided to proceed anyway, Peter phoned Housekeeping.

P: Hello, it says in the book in my room that it is possible to purchase a bathrobe, so I would like to buy one please.
Housekeeping: Book?
P: Yes, the book that is in all the rooms.
[Silence].
P: It says on it…[describes front cover and title page of book in detail].
H: Yes?
P: Yes, well, if you turn to the page where it says ‘Housekeeping’, where it says, ‘Bathrobe’, it says ‘If you wish to purchase a bathrobe, please call Housekeeping’. I would like to purchase a bathrobe.
H: One moment please, sir. [Slight hiatus, then returns]. I will send someone to your room.
P: Thank you.
H: You’re welcome.

Five minutes later, a knock at the door. Someone from Housekeeping stands silently, then says, ‘May I help you?’ Peter takes her over to where the book is. ‘Ah, book!’ she says. He turns to the relevant page and painstakingly points to the Chinese writing under the ‘Bathrobe’ bit. ‘Ah,’ she says. ‘One moment please’. And goes.

Another five minutes. Then a different wifie appears with three bathrobes, gives one to Peter, and starts looking around the room for our used ones. She looks in the cupboard, behind the bathroom door, on the bed, and casts a slightly accusing eye at our suitcases. Peter tries to explain that the bathrobes were removed when the room was cleaned and that we weren’t given new ones, but that what we want now is to buy a new one. She doesn’t understand, and phones Housekeeping. Peter patiently informs them, again, that the bathrobes were taken away and we have none. He suggests that perhaps now that she has brought three, she could leave them all – two for the room and one for us to buy. He hands the phone back to her for translation. She listens for a long time, then says, ‘One moment please’, and scuttles away, leaving one bathrobe behind.

Approximately fifteen minutes go by. Then the phone rings in the room and I answer it.

Housekeeping: Ah, good evening madam, I am so sorry to trouble you.
Me: That’s ok.
H: I just speak to room attendant, and she say that she put two bathrobe in your room this morning, so perhaps you forget or you put them somewhere different?
Me: No, we do not have any bathrobes. Well, we do, we have one, which your attendant just brought a few minutes ago, but before that we had no bathrobe. The attendant took the bathrobe away today and did not leave a new one. We have told you this several times but you don’t seem to believe us. I rather resent being accused of stealing bathrobes.
H: Oh, I am so sorry to trouble you.
Me: Well, ok, but all we want now is to buy a new one and charge it to our room bill.
[Pause]. H: Ah, you want…?
Me: To buy a bathrobe. And to add the cost to our room bill.
H: Sorry?
Me: The cost. Of the bathrobe.
H: Cost?
Me: Yes, the money. 350 Yuan. To add to our bill. Can we do that?
H: Cash or credit card?
Me: No, put on our room bill. The bill for our room. Our hotel bill. For our room.
[Pause]. H: One moment please. [Hangs up].

I’ve had enough. I phone reception and ask for the manager. He’s busy so I ask for him to phone me back.

Manager: Ah good evening madam, this is duty manager. How may I help you?
Me: Well, we’re having a bit of difficulty here this evening. [I relate the saga to date, explaining once again that we were given no new bathrobes, that we have not hidden or stolen them, and that we would like to buy one as offered in the guest services book].
DM: I am so sorry, madam, for your trouble. So you have no two bathrobe clean?
Me: [having to think a bit about this one]: When? Now?
DM: When you check in.
Me: Well, yes, there was one bathrobe when my husband checked in on Tuesday. He used it and it was taken away. Then later it was replaced with another one. I used it today and then it was taken away too, and we were given no new bathrobe. And nobody in Housekeeping seems to understand or believe us, and they keep phoning us asking where the bathrobes are.
DM: So you want new bathrobe clean? Or two?
Me [losing will to live]: No. We don’t care. [I try a new tack]. Is it possible to buy a bathrobe from the hotel? For 350 Yuan? And charge the amount to our room bill? Is that a service you offer?
DM: Ah, you want to buy new bathrobe? And to give signature and charge to your bill?
Me: YES!!!!!! Yes!! That’s what we want! Please! Thank you.
DM: Ah, sorry, we are confused. [You don’t say]. I call Housekeeping and send someone to your room.

Ten minutes later another girlie appears with two bathrobes. One is wrapped in plastic. She carefully explains that this is the one we can buy, and the other ‘you can use in my hotel’. She hands Peter a chit to sign, saying, ‘Credit card’. ‘No’, he says, ‘charge to room’. She goes to the phone. ‘Phone the Duty Manager’, I say. ‘He knows’. She phones and is quickly given the ok, so Peter signs and gets his bathrobe. This has taken more than half an hour.

The thing is, it’ll be so flippin’ hot in hospital in Hong Kong that I bet he never even wears it.
We quickly hung the remaining two in the wardrobe on full view to prevent any further accusations of robe theft. Thank God we’re leaving tomorrow.