Getting My Exercise

With this lingering winter and, in spite of my earlier proclamation that I have heat in my apartment, I now have to confess that I am tired of winter, tired of being cold, tired of cleaning mud off my shoes, tired of rain and tired of teaching in my parka.

It is a good thing I’m getting my exercise. I walk a lot, I climb stairs to get to my classrooms, I do my stretches, just to keep my muscles and joints limber… all in wait for the day that I will not have to dress in layers or huddle in a jacket while relaxing in my home. Seriously: this small bit of exercise does keep my mood sunny and upbeat, helps keep me energized even though I feel mostly like just laying around and reading or writing, and helps me feel good in spite of the never ending leaden skies above.

I am sure that each and every one of you has agonized over my fitness activities. Now that I have put your fears to rest, I can go on with the rest of the post, which has nothing to do with calisthenics, aerobics or heart rates, resting or stressed.

No, I’d like to report an exercise in folly.

I was trying to mail my passport to Beijing. As you might remember from the ‘Beijing’ post a few weeks back, my passport is set to expire this year – in about 6 weeks, to be exact. I have to get it renewed or get kicked out of the country. Nobody wants to get kicked out of a country, do they? Least of all me, and least of all from this country. They tend to be brutal when evicting people, at least so I’ve heard.

As promised, the consulate in Beijing sent me an email stating that my new passport is ready. The email instructed me to mail my old passport to #55 An Jia Lu, in Changyang District of Beijing. I’m thinking: its no big deal! I’ve been to the post office before and I’ve mailed things before. All I have to do is ask for the appropriate envelope or box, fill out the label, pay my fees and off it goes. Sam contends he should go with me to write things in Chinese.

“But Sam… the email the consulate sent gave me the address in Pinyin. They did not include a Chinese version of the address.”

“I should probably still go with you” he says. That was about 3 weeks ago.

I wait and wait for him to go with me. Knowing that poor Sam is busier this semester than he’s been since I’ve known him, after two weeks I decide to wait no longer and take matters into my own hands. I’m getting a bit worried about the timeline, you see. Not only is my passport dangerously close to expiring at this point but, once I obtain the new passport, Sam is going to have to take it to various government agencies to get my visa and other official paperwork renewed.

Besides, Gary and I are making travel plans. His business is currently at an ebb; it is the ideal time for him to travel. Springtime is coming – surely, after all this rain and cold we will have a spring, will we not? Springtime is a mighty fine time to travel. But I can’t do it if I don’t have a passport.

So, with all this in mind I head to the post office. No problems dealing with the window clerk; she is a very nice woman. I inform her (in Chinese) that I have one letter for Beijing and one headed to America. I need two Express Mail envelopes, please. She hands me two labels to fill out, specifying which one is meant for the Beijing envoy and which one will go international.

So far, so good.

I fill both of them out, carefully copying the address the Consulate gave me: 55 An Jia Lu, Beijing China (remember: they only sent me a Pinyin version of the address). And I write my return address, complete with phone number, also in Pinyin. Then I go back to the clerk with my completed forms. She scans them and then…

Asks if there is someone she could talk to on my behalf. Is there someone I could call, maybe a student or a teacher, who could come help me?

Why do I need help?

Well, it seems that, especially for the letter destined for Beijing, everything must be written in Chinese. And, while this clerk and I were conducting business with no interpreters whatsoever up to this point, apparently she felt that I was now in over my head and I needed help. I tried to call Sam, who I knew was busy teaching. Next I called Lancy, one of my students who has already graduated but is staying on campus, preparing her thesis due next month.

At the postal clerk’s request, this dear girl comes running. Literally. All the way from the library, at the back of campus, near my apartment complex (the post office is clear at the other end of campus and then at the end of The Street, fronting the main road). Within a few minutes, there is Lancy, breathless and sweating.

This poor girl doesn’t know what to do either. The address given by the consulate – An Jia Lu, could have many meanings. There are approximately 9 characters that represent An, 17 that represent Jia and 13 that represent Lu. Which An? Which Jia? Which Lu?

As you might remember from the recently posted ‘Why? Why and again… Why?’ entry, everything from street signs to directional signs, instructional signs and even safety and regulatory signs are written both in Pinyin and in Chinese characters, as well as in English. All over the post office, and even on the very counter this clerk was assisting me from there was a sign written both in Chinese and in English. One would think that, with Pinyin and English being so prevalent all over the place, that an address written in Pinyin would be easy to decipher.

And, one would think that the American consulate in Beijing, China, that employs several people who are Chinese, would not only know better than to give the address just in Pinyin, but parlay it into Chinese characters if it was going to pose such difficulty negotiating the post office.

Nevertheless, here we are, Lancy and I, she still beading sweat from her run across campus and me fuming, trying to figure out which An, which Jia and which Lu characters to convert the Pinyin to. Several forays into Google via her SmartPhone later, we deduced that the proper ‘An’ must be the character that represents ‘peace’, the proper ‘Jia’ must be the one that stands for ‘home’ and the correct ‘Lu’ surely must be the character that corresponds to ‘Road’.

Now Lancy must write everything on the mailing label in Chinese. She scratches out my neatly penned Pinyin, refigures and verifies everything twice before declaring we are finally ready to turn the poor, abused mailing label over to the postal clerk.

Said clerk declares it is now too messy and we must rewrite everything. She charges me an extra 1.5Yuan for a new mailing form. Now frustrated beyond belief, I stride away from the counter and back to the mailing prep area where Lancy already sits, rewriting everything.

Finally, after an hour and twenty minutes spent at the post office, the clerk accepts my label for mailing.

Remember that, at the beginning of this rant I told you that the postal clerk and I had no problems making ourselves understood. Furthermore, when Lancy showed up, she and I discoursed in Chinese, only reverting to English when we absolutely had to, such as when using phrases like ‘American Services Center Division’ (part of the consular designation in the address they sent me).

Now comes the ultimate irony:

The postal clerk and an old woman who had been sitting nearby, apparently visiting with said clerk, bantered back and forth on how great it is that I can speak Chinese! And how I can manage my affairs so well for being a foreigner! If I could manage so well, why, OH WHY did I have to call someone to help me? And, if everything in China is written either in Pinyin or in English as well as Chinese, why, OH WHY did we have to rewrite everything? Twice! At my expense!

I nearly gave myself whiplash shaking my head, trying to get these redundant thoughts out of it.

After this long exercise in frustration and that last bit of neck exercise, I decided to take a nice bus ride. At least on a bus, no one suggests I call for help.