5. Being an expat is...telling a taxi driver, "I don't know what the street is called. There's a building with (using finger to draw zigzags in the air while making a "ch-ch-ch-ch" sound) at the top. I think it's a flower."
4. Being an expat is...being told by a child, "No, actually you say it this way. You used the wrong tone."
3. Being an expat is...unsuccessfully trying to use the kiosk at the phone company to pay your (overdue) bill. Entering and reentering your phone number not once, not twice, but three times, each time making a mistake and having to go all the way back to the home screen because you don't know which button says "clear". After all that effort, you get an error message. try a new machine, and get another error message. You tell the lady in your very best Chinese, "this machine has a problem but I don't know what because I can't read." Then comes lots of problem solving with the lady, restarting the phone approximately ten times, and paying more money (not sure why), all the while insisting your phone should have 3G, so why isn't it coming back on? You finally remember that you actually turned off the 3G when you went on vacation. Oops.
2. Being an expat is...traveling all the way to a restaurant to see if they will be open tonight and to order takeout because you know you'd never be able to accomplish all of that on the phone...if you could even find their phone number, which is unlikely.
1. Being an expat is...staring blankly at a wall of milk, knowing what you need but having no idea how to find it. There are a million options - boxes of milk, pouches of milk, cartons of milk, soy milk, chocolate milk, "cereal" milk (whatever that is). You know the colors probably mean something (or at least they would in the States, but that's not necessarily true here). The red one is $0.03 cheaper than the blue one. Why? You briefly get distracted by the honeydew milk, wondering who in the world thought that was a good idea. Swallowing your pride, you go to the dairy aisle worker and tell her, "Please help me. I need milk but I can't read so I don't know if I want this one or another one." She says lots of things you don't understand. You say, "Tomorrow at school, my students and I are making...making...." Shoot. How do you say ice cream? Bing means ice. Bing something... Bing bing something? No. Ugh! "...making that really really cold ice milk stuff." And so the awkward exchange continues until she shoos you away with three pouches of milk, which may or may not be what you set out for.
No comments:
Post a Comment