I picked up on another great 'Only in China' story from a pal - a couple went into a restaurant and were not at all impressed with the hygiene standards (must have been REALLY bad!!) - they complained but the staff became abusive & threw them out. They took legal action and the restaurant was ordered to pay the equivalent of just over 7,000 pounds compensation. Clearly pissed by this, the owners paid up purely in lowest-denomination coins....100,000 of them weighing some 400kg!!It's fair to say the message was "Here's your money, but F*CK YOU!!"
The couple struggled to find a bank who would take it all - the one that did had to assign 18 staff to count it all. Never again complain if you are roped into helping out counting coins after a school fair!!!!
Next up - a photo I took in the office the other day...a hard-working local having a nap. It's common over here, but I still struggle with it - I feel like kicking the chair and shouting "WAKE UP YOU LAZY BA$TARD!" in his ear...can you imagine this happening in the UK? Mind, if any boss reacted like that in Britain, there would soon be a compo claim for damage to hearing, burst ear-drums etc, as well as for soiled underwear...
Next up, I've had problems with a plug socket in my bathroom - if I plug in my shaver / toothbrush charger, the fuse in the box trips...sometimes I can simply flick it back on, but the other day it just wouldn't. I called in at the management office for my apartment block and - fair enough - within a few minutes a guy turned up with a tool belt around him that almost inspired confidence - he had more tools dangling from it than Sylvester Stallone about to attack the Russian Embassy to rescue President Obama's dog or something, and he looked the business in that regard, although he reminded me of Albert Steptoe quite a bit...
He immediately set about pulling all sorts of wires out of the fuse box - I assumed so he could look at the socket in the bathroom, and it all looked a bit dangerous...I stepped further & further back, half expecting him to explode in a flash of lightening and as more and more wires came out (without any sort of main switch being thrown - all the lights in my apartment were still on, and the telly)- I even feared a small atomic mushroom cloud as he self-combusted - the poor guy was sweating like a pig.
He was clearly struggling, so ran off chunnering & jabbering, returning with a bloke in a tie who could speak English. He said "Mr Chan say he need factory to come - be maybe 2 days". I commented - in possibly my most patronising voice - that I thought having a quick look at the socket itself may reveal something as simple as a loose wire there, rather than investigating the entire national grid system for Northern China, and that it wasn't really an big deal...but, no, "The factory" is coming, so I suspect that in approximately 2 days, Beijing will be plunged into total darkness, life support systems in hospitals will go off and several people will turn to dust in my apartment when 9,000,000 volts are released in apartment 1203...in the meantime, the cover is on the floor and a load of cables dangling out...nothing like being proud of your work & attention to detail, eh? And health & safety? The words don't translate into Chinese!!!
Finally, still at my apartment, a wonderful new 'water feature' has been installed in the gardens. I came home to several people stood looking at the swirling green mess that reminded me of the tornado at the start of 'The Wizard of Oz', and I suspected falling in would lead to the centre of the earth, Jules Verne-style, to a land full of dinosaurs etc. I understand one small child and a dog had already been sucked in and lost, and the security guards were tying a rope around some poor lad who was going to be lowered in to try to find their bodies...
OiC - 'Only in China'...
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