Life's Persistent Questions

Monday, Nov 29.

So after 16 hours of sitting and sleeping and drooling, mostly simultaneously, I have finally arrived in the good-ole U.S.A. (Amusing link) My feeling exactly. And how nice, it decided to welcome me with snow.

As my airport shuttle drove up to my place, I suddenly realized that I have no idea where my receipt from two weeks ago which indicated that I had paid for both legs of the round trip shuttle. Damn, I gonna be out $22. What the heck, I don't care, I'm home. I half-heartedly told the driver (the same driver from two weeks ago) that I can't find the receipt. Her answer? "That's ok, I trust you." And that's it. The whole time with a smile.

Now flash back to Sunday, when my girlfriend and I haggled at Carrefour, a chain Wal-mart like store to return a DVD player, in Beijing. What a pain. They have a 7-day return policy, and the electronic guy told us we could return it at any of the six stores at the time. Now, a week later? First they won't take it back, unless I bring back the DVD it skips on. Then they will take it. Then we were told they won't take it because it was from a different Carrefour store. Two managers and nearly an hour later, it's still not resolved. Now we are making a scene. Part of me is amazed that a store in China would even consider its customer's request for return for so long--gotta love capitalism. Part of me is mad at the complete lack of initiative by the managers. And lastly, I'm most proud of myself, from what I considered as the weaker position, for been able to argue in Chinese for so long to the point that the managers got so defensive that they covered up their name tags and tried to take back their phone numbers.

There's no nice way to put it, many people in China are not very nice to strangers. Well, I realized that in China, I often felt like the Chaplain in Catch-22:
[People] invariably welcomed him with excessive cordiality when he approached and waited uncomfortably for him to go away...Everyone was always very friendly toward him, and no one was every very nice.
At the resturant, the greeters greet you with robotic smiles, but it's because they have to. Bus drivers give you directions, but treat their each word like each syllable is made of gold. The feeling is enhanced after I went to Shanghai. I finally realized how much sincere warmth that I had been unaware of from my relatives.

Well, I've heard people on Chinese TV talking about how to move China from a purely manufacturing country to a more service-oriented one, like India. Blame what you want, but until the country can finally lose the mentality that personal relationships are not invariably a zero-sum game, that day will be far away.

posted by hedgehog @ 1:09 PM