Keriosity

We just got back from 5 days in China and 7 days in Japan. Shanghai and Tokyo, to be exact. Our second visit to each city. We went to watch the Grand Prix. Formula 1 Races. No seriously. It was fun!

I’ve learned several things about China.

1. The Chinese do not believe in the concept of “Maximum Occupancy.” Ironic for a country that has a 1-child-per-family rule.

2. They also don’t believe in the concept of “Right-of-Way”. It’s more like - whoever gets squished first loses. I think it’s part of the communist thinking - everyone has the same rights so nobody has more of a right to go first, no matter what mode of transportation they are using or what color the traffic light is.

3. They don’t let a little word like “No” discourage them. “You need watch?” No. “Watch?” No. “Rolex?”  No. “Pan-a-roy?” No. “You need bag?” No. “Voo-ton?”  No. “Loo-ee Voo-ton?” No. “Goo-chee?” No. “DVD?”

4. They think vegetarianism is exclusive to Buddhist monks. Advising restaurant staff that I am a vegetarian just got them to bring me more vegetables with meat. I’d like to point out to all of China that jellyfish is not a fruit, and that sea cucumber is a HUGE misnomer.

5. Proofreading is not a necessary skill.

6. Public areas, such as parks, are NOT to be enjoyed by the public. The rules for what you can’t do in a park is very long and inclusive. (There’s a picture of them below.)

They DO believe in excellent customer service, pretty good food, lots of shopping, friendly people, late hours, driving fast, strong work ethic, cool temples and gardens, the best massages anywhere, and cheap prices for everything except what gets imported.

Some of my favorite moments in China occur when our Chinese friend John negotiates prices with vendors. They really YELL at each other - John wags his finger at them and acts very insulted. And then they give us 50% off and all is well. It’s not a good sale unless buyer and seller scream at each other in defense of their families, living and deceased, whose very honor is threatened by the price of a counterfeit watch. They are very serious about honor. And a good discount.

Going from China to Japan was like taking ritalin.

In Japan, Order and Politeness seem to be the main objectives at all times:

1. Where China had the no-right-of-way issue, Japan has dividers in the sidewalks so that everyone keeps to their left. That way, no one bumps into each other. Of course, I’m a stupid American and I kept walking on the right, against the flow of pedestrians.

2. Talking is kept to a precise volume of 45 decibels, which is exactly between loud whispering and quiet speaking. This creates an eerie “white noise” kind of sound in all public areas.

3. Every salesperson in every store greets every customer the same way - “Sumi Masen! Irashaimasu!” (Excuse me, thank you, and welcome!) which sounds like “Sumi maseeeeeh! Blah-blah-blah-maseeeeeh!” (In China, they have their own standard greeting: “You want? I have! I have!” I appreciate the English, but not the aggression. )

4. Order and Politeness in Japan means that blowing your nose in public is one of the rudest things you could do. And I have allergies. I quietly and quickly blew my nose in my hotel room when the maid was doing turn down service and she jumped and glared at me. My feeling on the matter is: it’s MY room. I can blow my nose and Emil can walk around without pants on. If you don’t like it - don’t do the turn down service! This sort of issue is one of the more annoying things about Japan. In China, baby clothes have a hole in the butt area - and there are no diapers. Me blowing my nose in public was the least of anyone’s troubles.

5. For all their quiet dignity - Japanese people are dirty! Not like, dirt dirty - like sex dirty! The English songs they play in the trendier stores made me blush! They are well-known for their sexy anime. The newest craze in desserts is the Tokyo Bust Pudding. I’ll let you google “bust pudding” on your own. I don’t want to be responsible for posting such pictures on my blog.

6. Why have 1 person do a customer-service job when you can have 6 people do it together? We were greeted by at least 4 porters at the lobby of our hotel every day - 2 people to hold the door and at least 2 more to say “Good morning, Mr. and Mrs. Rensing. Do you need a cab this afternoon? Can I give you walking directions then? Would you like a parasol for some shade?” (I assume they adopted this “no-means-maybe” idea from the Chinese.)

7. Every activity needs to have its own song. Train doors open - a trill of notes plays. Train doors close - a different trill plays. Elevator goes up - it’s the elevator-goes-up song. Elevator goes down - you get the idea. Little jingly songs play all the time, everywhere. Even the toilets play songs. I’m not kidding.

The other weird thing that is common to both China and Japan - It’s HOT and HUMID and everyone is wearing long pants, long sleeves, and often sweaters. I was dying in tank tops and jeans. I just learned a little tidbit of information about Asian people - they have fewer sweat glands than Caucasians. It’s true. I heard it on Oprah. (I watch the 2am rebroadcast of Oprah so that no one can accuse me of sitting on the couch all afternoon watching Oprah. The cure for insomnia, btw - Oprah.)

Ok, this blog is long enough. I guess I’ll end with a few words of advice if you plan to travel to China or Japan: Take lots of pictures, be on the lookout for engrish, always carry toilet paper in your purse, and start taking Cipro preemptively.

What’s the point of going to the park if I can’t do my laundry and spread anti-goverment propaganda?

You may recall my list of moving inconveniences that you’ll never find in any moving literature - well I moved again. And I am beyond frustrated. Not with the yogurt this time - I gave up that brand of yogurt because it wasn’t worth the trek to the only store in all of Orange County that carried it. This time, my frustrations are mostly about finding a proper cleaning lady and finding my new nail salon.

The nail salon part is not that interesting.

But the cleaning lady part: well it’s more gross than interesting. But, as with all gross things I experience, I must share the details with others since I cannot stand being the only grossed-out person.

Ok, so Emil and I decided that we really need to step-up our “help” requirements to include errands and such. Turns out, a person who both cleans your house and runs errands for you is actually a Housekeeper and no longer a Cleaning Lady. Any ol’ person can be a Cleaning Lady (well any ol’ LADY, that is.) I guess it must take a very specially qualified person to be your Housekeeper, because there seem to be much fewer of them.

While googling “Housekeeper, Los Angeles”, I came across one service that has been around for hundreds of years and they help match Housekeepers with people who are too busy to take care of themselves. I called that service and scheduled a Housekeeper to come the following week.

That Housekeeper failed to show up and, apparently, was never heard from by anyone ever again. Hm. Not a good sign. But, the company offered me 3 free hours of cleaning services, so we scheduled Housekeeper #2 to come the following week.

Housekeeper #2 called me the night before to confirm. That was very professional, so I was pleased. Then, on the morning of our scheduled day, she called me again. “I think I am at your house - is it blue?” I looked outside the kitchen window and was very startled. Were it not for the fact that she was on the cell phone with me at that moment, which confirmed that this was, in fact, the Housekeeper I was expecting, I would have honestly thought she was showing up for a hot meal and not to clean my home.

I feel incredibly shallow and judgmental for even going there - but she was dirty. Her clothes were stained and badly mismatched. Now, I don’t expect a cleaning person to come to the house fresh from the shower and in her best clothes. Obviously, cleaning makes you a little icky anyway, so I can understand a less than squeaky appearance. However, she just looked sloppy and dirty.

And I’m not sure she was “all there” because she laughed at everything I said. “I keep the cleaning supplies under the sink in this plastic tote.” “Ok, hahahahahahaha!” I failed to see the humor. If I kept my cleaning supplies in a jack-in-the-box, maybe. The plastic tote is decidedly not funny.

But - it gets worse. So much worse.

I handed her the list of chores to be done, as requested by the service, and rather than make her stand in the living room to read (we had no furniture in there yet), I invited her into the kitchen to sit and read. She laughed, of course, and sat down. And when she got up and walked away - I swear to you - her pants were wet. The seat of her pants was wet down to her knees. And she turned to me and I saw that the front of her pants was wet too.

You know in movies or TV when something is so shocking to a person that they use that camera effect so that the person stays the same size and the background zooms away from them? That’s exactly what happened to me. My eyes fixed on the wet pants and my world started to fall away.

Are you kidding me?! Only I would get the Incontinent Homeless Housekeeper. Remember The Dirty Yoga Instructor? These things happen to me!

Thank god I was getting the chairs reupholstered!

When she walked into the next room, I immediately and gingerly pressed a wad of paper towel to the kitchen chair to see what the hell had just happened. It appeared dry - so she was like this prior to coming over and she still showed up that way. Great.

What was I going to do? How can you ask someone to just leave without giving them a reason? And you all know I can’t lie.

So I let her clean. She did a pretty good job - but she stunk up whatever room she was in. I opened every window in the house and was freezing all afternoon.

I had to call the company to tell them - and I had to be honest. When the manager asked me how the cleaning went, I paused.

“Tell me,” she said.

“Well - there’s a hygiene problem,” I said delicately.

“Really?! In what way?”

“Um…it’s really embarrassing to even have this conversation. She was dirty and she smelled. Her clothes were stained. And…um…her pants appeared wet.”

“Gasp! Oh my god - she peed herself?” she asked.

“Well…yeah, I think so.”

I was offered another 3 free hours and the manager was scheduling me with their BEST Housekeeper ever. And the only explanation of Housekeeper #2 is that “she’s new”. I see. She must not have had a chance to read the Housekeeper Handbook in which I’m sure they address why you should never pee on yourself at work.

Housekeeper #3 came early on the scheduled day. She was dressed neatly in scrubs (smart!) She completed everything on my list, did a decent job, was very nice and I liked her a lot. But when she came back the second time, she brought her 4-year old nephew. Sigh.

Is it too much to ask that I find the perfect Housekeeper? Where are the Alices, the Florences, and, if need be, the Tony Micellis? Could it be that TV, in addition to portraying unrealistic body images, family dynamics, and romantic expectations, has also been greatly exaggerating the availability of good Housekeepers? I want a Rosie Jetson! Even my Roomba has turned out to be a disappointment.

For the time being, I am keeping Housekeeper #3 in the hopes that this kid, being her nephew after all, must have several other caregivers at his disposal and that coming to work with his aunt was an isolated incident.

And in truth, she does remind me a little of Florence from the Jeffersons.

I decided that I would start having a yoga instructor come to my apartment for private sessions. I searched on Craig’s list and emailed with a few, but ultimately decided on one who seemed very nice, relaxed, no pressure, etc…. I’ll call her “Sarah”. What I am about to say needs to be prefaced by saying that she is very sweet and I’m sure she’s a nice person. But…

Sarah came over yesterday evening for our first session. Sarah is dirty. And I don’t mean in a fun “you dirty girl!” kind of way. She’s just dirty. Besides just looking scraggly, which I was willing to look beyond if the yoga was great, these things happened within the first 10 minutes of meeting her:

1. She went to the bathroom to change into her yoga clothes. Upon returning, she folded her pants and put them on my sofa. Then she picked up her shirt, looked at it, sniffed it, made a face that included scrunching up her nose, folded the shirt and put it with the pants. She sniffed her shirt and made a face. And then put that shirt on my furniture with other possibly smelly clothes.

2. We started practicing our first posture, which was the triangle, and when she bent down towards her left foot - she stopped, looked at her foot, picked something off of a toe, and FLICKED it to the side. SHE FLICKED SOMETHING THAT CAME OFF HER TOE. IN MY APARTMENT. I can only hope it landed on her own mat, but I think she would have done this mat or no mat.

Sarah is not going to work out as my yoga instructor. I don’t maintain a very clean apartment so that someone’s smelly shirt and toe crud can be tossed about.

And the yoga? Well…..it wasn’t so much a lesson as much as “Um…..oh! I know a good pose - Ok, do this…..” Followed by “Oh yeah! Here’s a good one! It has a long name that most people forget, so I just call it this.” What? You make up names for the postures? This is an ancient and highly regarded and widely practiced physical art form. And you make up names? Nuh-uh. That’s like me saying “Your dog has autoimmune-mediated hemolytic anemia. But that name is so long and hard to remember. I just call it ‘pale and probably will die.’ ” You don’t make up names!!!

So the search for a yogi continues…