Monday morning and bad china days....

Its Monday morning. And its raining. Even though I don't work I still get the Monday morning blues and the sunday night back to school feeling which is wierd really. Anyway today is yoga followed by cakes with the girls this afternoon to celebrate a birthday! Oh and I guess I should do some studying...am so good at falling behind :(

So good weekend although yesterday I had a definate case of a bad china day. A bad china day really exists...my doctor even asked me once if I was having one. Its something us expats experience from time to time and can stem from a number of reasons. Mine yesterday involved having a small strop at the waitress. I told her I didn't want any bacon with my breakfast but to swap it for sausage...sounds simple enough eh?? Don't ever go off menu here. It causes no end of confusion. She kept telling me that the bacon came with the breakfast and I would have to pay for the sausage.

My second little strop came later where a woman came out of a shop, no concept of what was around her and proceeded to walk into me. A little shove soon sorted her out. Now to everyone reading this (all 4 of you) that might not sound like much and maybe I was overreacting. No. As a rule the chinese have NO concept of personal space and whats around them. They constantly walk into you. They never look what is around them. They will stop dead in the street and if you are close to them you will literally fall over them. They stop in the most incovenient places such as at the top of an escalator causing everyone else who is behind them and trying to get off the escalator to crash right into them. If you try and get past them in the street they somehow subconsciously know and wander to the side on which you are trying to pass them. And don't even get me started on the girls walking down the street arm in arm..3 of them. You will end up on the road...don't ever expect them to break their line!!!

So why else would you have a bad china day? Oh there are a number of reasons a few I shall mention.

1) Queuing. It doesn't exisit. Be preapred for them to just come and jump right in front of you and look surprised when you tell them you are first. I am twice the size of them...how can they miss me?
2) Trying to cross the road. You take your life into our own hands crossing the roads here. It may be on a green man but it doesn't necessarily mean you have right of way. The cars going straight will cross but forget about the ones turning the corner. You just have to walk straight and determined and never look them in the eye and hope they stop. At least the bicycles and the mopeds can drive round you.
3) Being beeped to get out the way by a moped when you are on the pavement. I so need to learn the words for 'The pavement is for pedestrians...get on the fecking road'.
4) Laughing at you when they are wrong. This is down to loss of face. If they do something wrong or don't know anything, instead of saying sorry or admitting they don't know, they laugh as they are embarassed. You have no idea how annoying that can be.

This final thing guaranteed to put me in a bad mood are taxis. Now taxis are dirt cheap here and quite often the most convenient way to travel depending on where you live. However trying to get a taxi in the rain is a nightmare!!! And don't get me started on trying to get one on a Friday night especially in the rain. Its like a total bun fight trying for taxis. I have flagged one down, gotten into the back seat, at the same time a little old lady has appeared from nowhere and hopped in the front seat. I did make her get out. And when they see you trying to flag one down and stand more or less right in front of you and flag one down first....its enough to make even the calmest person's hackles rise. My personal favourite was a stand off between me and two friends in the back of the taxi and a greek guy in the front. He was an arse and we had to get out but not after we told him exactly what we thought of him!!

Now don't get me wrong I love living in china and most of the time these things amuse me but if you wake up in a slightly bad mood....then the best thing to do is stay home with the duvet over your head!!!!