Experiment One: buying a hairdryer

China is not Japan. Not even in the slightest. No welcomes, no greetings, and (here at least), no anime haircuts. All the layers of politeness that we’ve grown used to traveling through Japan are gone. China just doesn’t give a damn. Ok fine. We can deal. Or maybe, it’ll take longer than I thought.

At the airport: lining up to get out, an old Chinese grandma, about waist high, is determined to dig her shoulder into my buttocks. Perhaps she thinks that since she can not go around me, she will literally go through me. I twist and turn to prevent further occurances of what my old Webster (as in the tv show) record taught me was “a bad touch” but what I’m really starting to learn here is that in China, you can’t avoid all the bad touches.

A brief stop in Carrefore (a French turned Chinese Wal-Mart-esque store): we walk down an aisle, and heads swivel completely around to stare…and stare (at least they were somewhat discreet about this in Japan). Then, cole pauses to observe the hairdryers, and one attendent comes up to us, smiling, pointing to the most expensive one. Then another woman sidles on over, then another, and one last latecomer (seriously, aren’t we in Shanghai? There are plenty of laowais around, look there’s one, and she has kids! Isn’t she gawk-worthy?) They are crowded into a huddle wondering which one cole will buy. Cole smiles…and we retreat. Scurry scurry away.

Ok, cole needs a hairdryer, so we try again. This time only two smell out our foreigness. One of them says something to me. Um…I don’t speak Mandarin, and I tell her so in Mandarin, Cantonese I say, and she understands but that doesn’t deter her as she continues to talk to me like I understand. She too, points out the most expensive hairdryer. I take out a calculator and try to bargain down (that is what one does in China no?) but she laughs and says no. Instead, we buy another brand. We pay at a not so obvious counter, and on the way out (more stares), I reach for a plastic bag, and am denied by a manager type. No plastic bag for us.

I carry the hairdryer back to our hotel, because we need a rest. Because Shanghai is not easy, and neither is getting a hairdryer. We’ll see how lunch and dinner go.

By tomorrow, we’ll be whisked away to our school enclosure, where hopefully things will make at least a little sense to us.