...I'm Day-Dreaming
Do you know the movie “Groundhog day” with Andy MacDowell and Bill Murray? Well I feel like I have been having the same experience as Bill Murray for the last 3 days.
Let me explain: our membership at our complex gym has expired and the apartment owner cannot come right away to pay the annual fee but call the management office and told them (in Chinese might I add) that he will come within a week and that they should let us have access to the facilities anyway…which they agreed to. I personally wouldn’t mind too much (as my friend Violaine knows I’m not the one over using the gym equipment here – 3 times in 2 years I wouldn’t call that dedication) but let’s go back to what bring me to this post. The gym has two pools, an inside one and an outside one and the outdoor one is supposed to close at the end of the month (Beijing municipality policy: outside pool can operate from July 1st to August 31st not a day before or after those set dates - same for heat!) and the kids want to enjoy it before it closes and school starts next week. So the first day after explaining my little problem to the entrance clerk and her checking if the facts were indeed right I was allowed access to the pool. The next day I had to tell my story over to the SAME person like it was the first time she heard the story from me… I made a point off asking her if she will remember me the next day and she of course said yes, no problem. Well you guessed it, the following day she had no recollection of our encounter the previous day. You might think that we, westerners, must look all the same to them, but no my friend those same persons will have no problem remembering tiny little details about you. Most of the time they have an incredible memory, they do have to learn and remember all those Chinese characters to be able to read and write!.
Maybe I never went to the pool the previous days I was really just dreaming…. Maybe I’m not even in China just in abad dream.
Let me explain: our membership at our complex gym has expired and the apartment owner cannot come right away to pay the annual fee but call the management office and told them (in Chinese might I add) that he will come within a week and that they should let us have access to the facilities anyway…which they agreed to. I personally wouldn’t mind too much (as my friend Violaine knows I’m not the one over using the gym equipment here – 3 times in 2 years I wouldn’t call that dedication) but let’s go back to what bring me to this post. The gym has two pools, an inside one and an outside one and the outdoor one is supposed to close at the end of the month (Beijing municipality policy: outside pool can operate from July 1st to August 31st not a day before or after those set dates - same for heat!) and the kids want to enjoy it before it closes and school starts next week. So the first day after explaining my little problem to the entrance clerk and her checking if the facts were indeed right I was allowed access to the pool. The next day I had to tell my story over to the SAME person like it was the first time she heard the story from me… I made a point off asking her if she will remember me the next day and she of course said yes, no problem. Well you guessed it, the following day she had no recollection of our encounter the previous day. You might think that we, westerners, must look all the same to them, but no my friend those same persons will have no problem remembering tiny little details about you. Most of the time they have an incredible memory, they do have to learn and remember all those Chinese characters to be able to read and write!.
Maybe I never went to the pool the previous days I was really just dreaming…. Maybe I’m not even in China just in a
