I bought a cheap cell phone this week for emergencies such as getting in touch with someone if (or when) I got on the wrong bus again or when I get lost without my trusty ‘dead-give-a-way that’s a tourist’ map or when I need to get into the hotel (where my apartment is) after 10:30 pm when they lock the doors. We bought the cell phone in Wu Mae with the price clearly printed as 300 RMB (approx 38 $) but we had to pay 400 RMB ( approx 50 $) because they could not install the phone number chip- (which we later bought and paid 100 RMB for) No we didn’t understand the logic either –but we paid the 400 RMB. We are not done yet -- we now begin our journey thru the Chinese purchasing system which is listed below whenever you buy something expensive such as jewelry, electronics, cosmetics, and even some produce.
• You pick the phone (or item)
• The girl behind the counter writes a ticket
• You take the ticket to a register (usually about 5 steps away)
• Pay for the item and they will stamp your ticket with an official stamp (usually round and red)
• Take the ticket back to the counter
• They give you the item after they fill out all the registration for you and get another red oval stamp
• Almost forgot – as you leave the store they stamp your sales receipt with a red triangle stamp (guess the ‘check the receipt at the door’ guy doesn’t rank a round stamp).
Side note – It took me 3 tries to finally be able to buy bananas because I hadn’t figured out what steps I had to go thru before I took them to the check out to pay for them. I have now mastered the Chinese produce purchasing system – no stamps but you do get a sticker.
Back to the Stamps and Banners. Now I still don’t have a working phone – it is missing a phone number chip inside the phone. This is where we include Roger the Foreign Affairs staff member, in our adventure. We go to the China Mobile store conveniently located on campus. There is a pretty long line because the students are picking up their ‘prizes’ for talking on the phone a lot. They have earned badminton rackets, cameras, mp3 players, and CDs. (But they don’t sell phones which explains the WuMae trip) We finally get to the counter and she says we need our Student ID to get a phone number. But of course we are not students and do not have a Student ID. Roger finally talks her into taking the Xerox copy of my passport (our real passports are going thru the many steps (alias stamps) to get residence status even though it has already gone thru many steps (i.e. – stamps) to get the “Z” working visa – heaven knows how many more stamps it will have in it.) So after we are allowed to use my passport we now get to pick out phone numbers. YES, we really do get to pick out own number – pretty cool, huh? Nathan was changing his number because his old one had a lot of 7’s and 8’s that are considered lucky numbers. He is hoping that if asks for unlucky numbers there would not be as many ‘wrong number’ calls which he was getting charged for. 3’s and 4’s are considered unlucky because 3 in Chinese sounds like pain and 4 sounds like death. I actually earned bonus minutes on my account because I picked one that had a 4 in it. The China Mobile lady starts filling out and we start signing at least 4 forms per 'phone number chip' each in triplicate. Then of course she applies the all important stamps to make it all official. 30 minutes later we need Roger again – he installs the chips into our phones, and then programs mine out of Chinese and into English so I can actually read my menu. I now have my working emergency cell phone!
I actually got my cell phone just in time. My ‘sweet heart’ (she hates to be called that- tee-hee-hee) of a sister sent me a memory foam mattress and of course FEDEX wanted to deliver it ‘immediately’ when we were an hour away in Hangzhou. I used my new emergency cell phone and was able to coordinated the pick up with the ever helpful Roger. I actually got to sleep on my side for the first time in 3 weeks! My sister has my undying gratitute - I will have to find her a really really expensive present to take back to her.
The other thing that is as abundant as the official red stamps are the red and yellow banners all around all the campuses. The banners are not just for special occasions they are permanent colorful fixtures in the educational environment. Of course we can’t read them but I am sure they are full of inspirational platitudes.
