A Lesson in Cultural Ineptitude

Well, we all knew there would be some difficulties once I got to China. Yesterday unquestionably qualifies as one of those times. Our first adventure was our return trip to Carrefour. Since we didn’t have enough time the first time (only an hour and a half, remember?), we decided to go back to the unbelievably over-stimulating supermarket. We all found lovely space heaters (because gas is expensive and our rooms are a tad chilly) as well as other bulky, ungainly purchases. There were five of us on that fated day: Will, Traci, Shayron, Liz, and myself. Well, it came time to check out. Traci and I were the last to make our purchases. We paid without incident. But lo and behold! Traci and I could not find the other three! We searched about high and low, left and right, near and far, but we could not find our counterpart. Traci and I decided the other three went ahead and without us, so we decided to try and hail a taxi. Mind you, Chengdu is a city of a thousand taxis. Everywhere you look, there are taxis! Loads of them! Waiting at a single stoplight there may be as many as 15 within a mere 100 feet! Yet when Traci and I tried to hail a cab, we were baffled by our inability to do so. Every single of the umpteen taxis that passed us by were either occupied or ignored us completely. We changed positions – we still could not get a taxi. We moved down the street – still no taxi. After a frustrating half-hour long attempt to find a taxi, we decided to hoof it and head back home with our bulky boxes on foot. Halfway home, Traci slipped (the sidewalks here are tiled, I don’t know why, but they are quite slick when they get wet) and hurt herself, at which point I was at a total loss. We still couldn’t get a taxi, and now my friend was injured. Eventually we made it back to our respective apartments. Apparently while Traci and I were checking out, Will, Shayron, and Liz went outside because they didn’t know where to go once they had all their bags. Well, when they looked inside, they couldn’t find Traci and me. Each half spent quite a long time looking for the other half, checking other exits, and so on. And they couldn’t get a taxi either! So I guess we all walked home. Well, we were exhausted from this little mishap, which was a clear indication that we all need cell phones. We decided to go to the first restaurant we could find for dinner. Now, let me tell you a little about Sichuan province. This region of China is very well known for its food – it’s quite spicy, but quite good. The local regional specialty is called “Hotpot,” which is kind of like fondue. You get a pot of boiling broth and you dip meat and vegetables in it, let it cook a little while, and then eat it. We were warned by our program director to put off eating hotpot for a while because we probably wouldn’t be able to handle it at first. We came to a restaurant. It was close to home and well populated. Great! Inside we go. We’re shown to a table. We realize there’s a big pit in the middle of the table – uh oh. This is a bad sign. We are given a Chinese menu, of which we only know a fraction of the characters. Oh man. Half the restaurant staff comes over to try and overcome the language barrier that surrounds us. They’re trying to explain to us what to do in a mix of Chinese and English. We’re totally clueless. Will and I are sinking in our seats, incredibly embarrassed about all the attention we’re drawing to ourselves. Other customers in the restaurant are watching. Someone from another table tries to comes over and help out. Eventually we communicate that we would like vegetables and that they should just pick food for us to eat. Whew! First hurdle passed. But when the food comes – oh man, when the food comes, we have no idea what to do. They keep giving us more and more and no one has more than 50 kuai on them (about $7). The restaurant looks upscale. We start getting nervous that we won’t be able to pay for our meal. We’re surrounded by food and have no idea what to do with it. We’re just staring at the vegetables and at the broth boiling in the middle of the table, unsure of how to proceed. One waitress, taking pity on us, comes over and makes us each a sauce out of the two kinds of broth in the middle, MSG, sugar, and plum sauce. She dumps all the vegetables and meat into the broth to let it cook. She shows us what to do, how to fish it out once its done cooking. Overwhelmed, we still have no idea what we’re doing. Somehow, though, we managed to get through the meal, and it wasn’t nearly as expensive as we thought it might be. We paid, we left, we feel asleep out of sheer exhaustion and an unsettling feeling of cultural ineptitude. Today, on the other hand, we started classes. Hurrah! So far I’ve had my Chinese class, which I love. My teacher seems to really know what she’s talking about and know how to teach effectively. Later on today, I have Taichi. It’s going to be a great semester!