Maddening China

Three things that have driven me crazy:

The landlord sent in a relative to try to fix the water heater that is leaking.   It was beyond his level of expertise so now the landlord hopes to call someone from the factory to look at it.  So another day with  no hot water.

I wanted some students to tell me what they thought about Sichuan food.  Problem was I couldn't get them to understand what Sichuan was.  I was mispronouncing it so I wrote the word on the board.  That didn't help so I tried to tell them how Jiangsu, Jiangxi and Sichuan were provinces of China.  This trying to explain by analogy didn't work either.  I finally took them to a map of China posted near the trainer office.  I showed them where Sichuan was in China.  Even then, they didn't understand until they thought about the pronunciation and went Oh! Sichuan!  It would have been unprofessional to say what didn't you understand?  It seems they were stuck on the word and its' pronunciation, and not listening to any of my explanations. 

I went to the bank this morning to deposit some money.  I stood in line and just as I was second in line, an older woman walked into the bank oblivious to the people waiting and talked to the teller I had been waiting to deal with.  People barging into line is a  common occurrence in China, and the older Chinese are the main culprits.  This morning, the clerk had to explain to the lady that I had been waiting and that it was my turn to be served, not hers.