That's Ricky infront of one of the many wiggling and singing Santas that are infront of a lot of stores here in China. The biggest difference between Chinese Christmas decorations and American Decorations is that the Chinese decorations go up a lot later and you will see them far into the spring. I wonder how long our ZUFE Santa is going to sing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas".
I decided that there was no way I was going to fit all my stuff that needed to go home in my 2 suitcases and 1 backpack so I decided that I needed to send a couple of boxes home. I used a really nice sturdy box that had come (filled with goodies) from Barb’s packing department where she works. I very neatly filled it with lots of my summer clothes, shoes and a couple of large size souvenirs I had bought. I also decided I would try and mail Zac and Nicole a small box of Christmas presents. Those I was able to fit neatly into a Nike shoebox.
I conned Jerry, one of my students, to help me with the actually mailing (and he gallantly carried the big box for me). We got both of us and the boxes into a stuff-it bus which was very entertaining. The closest China Post already had about 15 students in a pack at the 2 windows. (Remember lines are a rarity here). Being a foreigner and old does have some advantages. Jerry was able to ‘butt in’ and get the papers I needed to fill out. Jerry also got the mail guy to look at the boxes and he told us we would have to buy 2 more boxes because mine were not good enough to mail in. So in this tiny student-filled room I had to unpack all my good packing and throw it into a new China approved SMALLER box. Thank goodness I had used the zip-lock bag trick on all my clothes so I didn’t have to refold. I managed to get it all in but the mail guy really had a hard time taping it shut. I hope it doesn’t burst open during its long journey home. The price was probably comparable to US Mail costs. The bigger box was about 45 dollars Ground and the smaller one I sent airmail and it was about 35 dollars. The forms were hard to fill out. The lights were off in the building and it was gloomy outside and of course the English translation print was really small so Jerry and his young eyes came to the rescue. I have to comment that the extremely busy clerks were very nice and friendly to everyone that I saw them deal with during that hour. All together it took us about an hour to do the actually mailing and a 30 minutes to get there and back. Not Bad for a China chore.
Side Note: I mailed another box home – don’t worry Jerry didn’t get stuck with this job again – this time I conned Andrew and George into helping. We ended up at a larger China Post because the closest one was packed. I had thrown all my stuff in a beat up box assuming they would make me buy a new one – but no, this time they proceeded to tape up this scruffy looking box but only after they took out my some of my DVD’s that I was trying to sneak home.
