Driving friends crazy…

Driving friends crazy….

One of my friends, Thomas, has decided that he wants to go traveling.  I’ve taken the time to drive him completely insane.  I think that’s what friends are for, and since I’m 40 and he’s 24, he sometimes gets the false impression that I’m wiser in some ways…I think that I’m just far more paranoid.  He was ready to pack up and go a couple of weeks ago, I told him that that wasn’t going to fly, and that it would completely backfire on him.  He then started to second guess his idea of traveling, and so I took him to a group of expats who have done a lot of traveling, for them to tell him about their experiences.  He told me that I’m driving him insane.  It took me a while to explain to him that what I actually wanted was for him to do this right, to enjoy himself, and that in order to do that, things have to be in order at home.  It only took a week of crazy suggestions from me to finally ask me what I thought of his plan.  I told him that it was a good plan, except that his execution was stupid.  His thought was to just pack up and hit the road. 

The problem with this plan is that it’s too vague, nobody knows where he is, all his contacts are for naught, and if he gets in trouble, nobody would ever know.  So, we’ve finally rewritten the plan, and added some of my own paranoia (based on a life of misadventure).  It looks like he’s probably headed out to points unknown (ish) in a couple of weeks.  I told him that I would be far more comfortable if he stored his stuff at my place so that he knows that it’s safe while he’s on the road, and I want an itinerary a copy of his passport and visa, and regular phone calls/emails/whatever communication.  I also recommended that we trade cameras for his adventure (his is really good, mine is really fake, thus, mine is better to get into trouble with, or accidentally break…it’s black market, why would you take something really good into the country-side?)  he finally agreed to all of this, and actually saw the wisdom to some of it, and should be headed out in a couple of weeks.

I want to kill my a yi (a yi is translated as “auntie” but means housekeeper).  I’m not sure if it’s illegal based on motivation, hard to say.  Right now, she’s cleaning the kitchen, and my fridge has been beeping for 10 minutes straight….shut the door!!!  She was supposed to come on Monday at 3, but something came up, so we said that we had to push it to the original time on Thursday.  She was supposed to be here at 3 pm, on Thursday, instead showing up at 8 am and rang the doorbell for half an hour…one after the other.  It woke me up, so, I took a shower, and tried to calm down while the doorbell rang and rang.  I’m sure you’re asking why I didn’t answer the door, I think it’s probably because I wanted to wrap my hands around her throat and express my displeasure at her ringing over and over and over and over….the fridge is still beeping, I have to take care of this….beep beep beep beep beep beep beep…..i’m starting to see some irritating personality traits.

Mei realized that she crossed the line with me and sends me emails and texts every day backpedaling and “trying to make me happy and my life happy”.  Out of curiousity, I thought I’d get some fresh perspective on her latest emails and my sisters all told me to get back together with her.  I probably should have sent them the 10 emails prior to those, as well as the 3 that I’ve received after that….or the 40 text messages, etc.  I think that those emails that I forwarded on were the best of them.  The problem is that I know what her motivation is, and my sisters didn’t.  I caught Mei breaking her own cultural norms thinking that I wouldn’t notice, and she gave me the option of losing face or getting rid of her.  She has now realized her error, and found that her position in my life was far less secure than she had convinced herself that it was.  I’m completely done with her, I’m eventually going to find someone else, but I’m taking my time. 

I had an interesting experience with eyeglasses here.  My current glasses are a bit strong and give me headaches to some degree.  So, I walked into the local eyeglass place to look around, they carry a pile of Chinese brands, and I thought I’d give them a shot.  The girl looked at me, said something, I asked if she spoke English, and she wandered out of the store into the square and yelled “does anyone speak English?”  A cute girl said that she did, and came in to help me get my eyes tested and pick out some glasses, gave up 2 hours of her day.  I thanked her and asked if I could buy her a café or tea, she said that I was a guest in her country and that she would take me out for tea.  After we ordered, I beat her to the punch and paid for the tea.  She looked at me puzzled, and I told her that I realized that instead of arguing over who would pay, I would just make the choice easier when it came time. 

A couple of days later, I was talking to a girl locally on a chat program called wechat, she mentioned that she was having a bad day, so I suggested that we go out for tea.  She’s extremely attractive, and took me up to a tea place that I never would have found.  It’s on the top floor of one of the taller buildings in Nanshan, and is all done in rock, and very feng shui.  They do tea with the proper washing, sanitizing, etc, and it was a fascinating experience.  I was welcomed to come at any time even though it’s considered a company retreat.  They welcomed me to bring any foreign friends along with me that I wished next time.  I’m going to have to take them up on that.

Overall, I’ve been in Nanshan for about a week or a week and a half now, and it’s absolutely comfortable.  I could live here for the rest of my time and be happy.  My house is unbelievable, I think I have a part time roommate now (Thomas – he’s started a bit of his traveling binge, he’ll be back for a week, then gone for the next 3 months…I see no reason for him to waste money on rent when he’s just storing part of his luggage, and I have 3 extra bedrooms.  He’ll find another place when he returns to Shenzhen full time, but for now, he likes knowing that everything is safe….weird, eh?).  My landlord has come to the conclusion that my couch is old and that it embarrasses her so, she’s told me that she’s buying a new one and going to send it to me.  I hope it takes a while, this couch is seriously comfortable….if it wasn’t 3 feet long, I would have slept on it the other night…I tried though!!