Be Prepared

I used to joke that I allot over an hour for a 25 minutes commute because I can’t ever been sure that a spaceship won’t land on the bridge I take the get to school. While this is an exaggeration, it isn’t far from the truth. In China, I need to be prepared for absolutely anything to happen.

There are two main reasons for this need. The first is that I can’t read or understand Chinese. A few weeks ago I noticed a piece of paper taped to a wall near my apartment. The other people living in the community all took a quick look at the paper before moving on with their day. All I knew was that obviously it contained some information that I should probably know about. The following Saturday, I woke up and went about my business. I put a load of laundry in my washer and was about to brush my teeth when I realized that my water was off. I called two of my friends who live in the apartment complex. The both confirmed that they too, had no water. From my best guess, the water was turned off from 10:00am-8:00pm. Perhaps the water had been halted for repairs (though I didn’t see any), but in all likelihood, had I been able to read the posted sign a few days before, I would have been aware of the fact that my water supply was going to be cut off for ten hours the following Saturday. Unfortunately, I could not. Luckily this was all not a big problem. It just meant that I had soapy clothes sitting in a washer all day and that I smelled.

The second cause for my cluelessness is that for some reason, Chinese people don’t share information as readily as I might like them to. I have a liaison, named Amy, whose job it is to help me with my life in China and tell me what’s going on at school. It’s not that Amy’s malicious or mean, in fact I really like her a lot and I know that she does the best that she can to help me, but she often doesn’t clue me into to changes to the school schedule or activities going on at school until the last possible minute or at all. A few weeks ago I showed up to school in time to be ready for my 1:45 class. Everything was going normally until at exactly 1:36 Amy told me that the entire afternoon schedule would be pushed back 30 minutes for the rest of the school year. Rather than having 10 minutes until my class began, I had 40. (Better that I was too early than too late, I guess).

10 minutes warning was actually not all that bad. Just yesterday I asked Amy if there was anything I should know about this week. She said that nothing at all special was going on this week. Only a short while later I found out that in fact there was something special going on that very afternoon. My students let me know that they would be competing in a basketball tournament starting during the 8th period. 2 hours since I asked, 1 thing it might have been nice to tell Ashley. This morning I woke up to find out that today is the anniversary of Sichuan earthquake the killed hundreds of students last year. At 2:28pm there was to be a moment of silence to remember all those who lost their lives. 22 hours since I asked, 2 things it might have been nice to tell Ashley. We’re at about 36 hours since I spoke to Amy about this week’s schedule. We’ll have to wait and see how many more things will end up surprising me.

After almost 10 months in China, these things hardly bother me anymore. I’ve gotten completely used to having little to no warning. If I ever get asked in an interview if I’m a flexible person, I’ll just have to answer that I’ve had a year of full time flexibility training and wouldn’t have a problem working around a spaceship in the office.