March Madness...and I Do Not Mean Bastketball!

So, I must say that I meant to cover March in more detail, but it was so crazy and absolutely overwhelming to us that putting one foot in front of the other is all we could manage to get through this month. It was by the shear grace of God that we survived it without any major nervous breakdowns. (Okay, I came close but the good Lord saw me through it and I learned that God supplies to us everything that we need in the moment and he will see us through to the next one). So what made it a month of Madness? It had to do with our new landlord, Dustin's work, Danny's teacher and general safety and etiquette here in China.

The month began of course with our move and more importantly, at least to understanding the madness...our introduction to our landlord. She is apparently the typical Chinese in that she is constantly negotiating, even everything which is clearly required of her in our contract. I say she is typical Chinese as this is what Dustin deals with on a daily basis. People constantly fighting against you, trying to give you substandard things, or cut things out of the contract that has already been negotiated and signed..this is from your own employees as well. Personally, I give him such credit for being able to do business here...it may be my legal background, but it makes me really annoyed and upset (okay, at times, irate) to renegotiate what I deem is a firm agreement. If it was me I would have left screaming all the way to the US a long time ago. :)

We have enjoyed the house as soon as we moved in, as it is just great to be in our own space and not in an apartment. Yet, most of the things that were suppose to be completed and fixed by the landlord never occurred before we moved in. Hence I spent most of March trying to get these things fixed. In addition, new things broke or needed to be fixed, so I was constantly working to have people come to fix things at the house. I am so grateful that we have a good agent and her office is a strong advocate for us. Otherwise it would be impossible to have any of it done. In addition to our landlord negotiating to not have to do things, it appears that while I provided a detailed list to everyone of what still needed to be fixed, no one would remember. This required constantly sending e-mails and calling my agent to have people fix it.

For example, I have had 10 separate conversations concerning the light on our hood above our stove and the lights next to it. I have had probably six different and sometimes the same workers look at it and tell me they are ordering it. I am having my seventh person come tomorrow to look at it, maybe fix it tomorrow. This was after someone came from the management office to write down what light was needed yesterday. I told Dustin yesterday that one would think that out of the five other times they came, told me they were going to order it or fix it, that one of those five people would have thought to write down what needed to be ordered and actually order it. Apparently, life is far from that simple here. Yet, this is a perfect example of working or trying to have someone fix something here. It requires a lot of patience. Frankly, if there was a better hardware store, such as could be found in the US, I could have read about the electical work, taught myself how to do it, bought the supplies and done it myself in the time it has taken them to organize this repair. Unfortunately this is just one of the repairs. We had everything from holes in the wall (created by the landlord herself when she ripped the hooks that were in the wall out that her first "painter" failed to remove and patch), mold growing on walls, to a heat vent sounding like an airplane was taking off in the family room.

The repair work and what needed to get down was a discussion that took most of March and included many people coming to the house to look at what needed to be done. Some even took pictures. So, you can only imagine my frustration when the landlord came to fix things and it turned instead into a marathon negotiation of her trying to get out from paying to have it fixed.
The afternoon was filled wth everything from her saying she would do some things, to saying she was not going to pay for another thing. It also involved her barging (literally she marched up the stairs and into his bedroom) into Josh's room while he was napping. This of course was right after I had told her not to go anywhere without me because he was sleeping. This process went so long I had to have a friend go and pick up Danny from school and keep him until she was gone. When she left we had not really gotten anywhere. We ended with me just pointing to the contract and saying this was what was required and this is what we expect to be done.

Towards the end of our time together she ended it with a comment I will never forget. "Us Chinese do not care so much about the money as the friendship." My first thought was...you have got to be kidding me..you just spent the last three hours arguing about whether you were going to pay for what you were required to pay. I think I ended up laughing out loud and said back that she should not have kicked me out of my own house the first day if she wanted to be friends (see previous blog for this story). Dustin told me later that this was her attempt to get me to accept her terms of not paying anymore. (I cannot believe this would work on anyone). He said he would have turned it on her and said if we are such good friends you will pay for it all. Of course, this is why he is the business man and not me. I just wanted to strangle her on the spot.

The happy ending concerning our landlord is that someone, we are not sure who, must have got a hold of her and explained things to her. She came to the house the following day and literally she was a completely different person. She was curteous, by Chinese standards, and she had people with her and they actually fixed most of the issues. She also said a painter would come to fix the walls. (She had left it the day before that we could pick one wall and she would fix that (there were at least 10 or more walls that needed to be fixed)--can we all say CRAZY). In the weeks to come in March, all the items except the kitchen lights have been fixed. Although it was done to Chinese standards it is still far better than nothing at all.

So, what else was happening through all this? Well, one of Dustin's employee's quit and went to work for a competitor, his new hire that was suppose to be trained was given no training, which meant Dustin had to add more to his already busy plate, he had numerous work meetings, late nights (as in midnight and beyond--try doing business with that little sleep) and still found time for our family on top. Personally, I am amazed by him and how he handles the stress of this job and all that he is able to accomplish here for his company and for us. Yet, I know Dustin will quickly be the first to down play anything he has done or does do...it is after all for the Lord and it is through the Lord that anything, especially here, gets accomplished. (There is a short novel here that could be written about all these issues that happened, but for obvious reasons they will remain out of the blog. :)

This of course brings us to the issue of Danny's school. We were quite shocked to find out about the middle of March that Danny's teacher had put pictures of children on his facebook page and then posted sexual comments about them...one really bad one was done by one of his friends. This information was obtained and copied by one of the parents and we spent a long weekend waiting to find out if Danny was involved and a long week dealing with the aftermath of it all. His teacher was obviously terminated and the search for a new teacher began. We found out about the situation on a Saturday and it took until Sunday night at a parents meeting to find out that Danny was not involved directly. The meeting was quite fascinating as Danny attends an international school and there are people from all over the world. To watch the interaction of parents as they tried to converse in English with most of them having a different native language and also different cultural and legal sytems, and with this being a highly emotional issue, it was quite fascinating. Thankfully by the middle of that week things began to settle down. The biggest blessing is that none of the children were adversely affected and continued on with their normal lives completely oblivious to all the craziness that was going on around them.

I belive the sadest part of our month was the passing of Dustin's grandmother the same weekend we were dealing with Danny's school situation. Dustin was unable to make it home for the service as it was held that Tuesday, but he was able to skype with his family right before the service. It is so wonderful that we are able to use this technology to stay connected.

The final aspect of our month was really just a culmination of the rudeness and total lack of ettiquette that is China. This society is built on a Me First mentality. It of course does not bother a Chinese person, as it is their norm. However, for any western person coming from a society of where one has etiquette (i.e.--not spitting on the ground--and I am referring to inside a store or not peeing in public--and yes no surface is safe, etc) and kindness and care for one's fellow man. The lack of it here is grinding and literally just wears you down. If you talk to most patriates, they will tell you that you can last a couple of months before you will just need to get out. We made it three...January through March, we decided at the end of March that we would leave China for Hong Kong during Danny's spring break in March. It was the best decision we made.

Now that we are back from our vacation and I am looking back on March, I can tell you that while March was an extreme month life in general here is not for the faint of heart. Yet despite all the craziness of it there are many blessing to witness here as well and God shows us these blessings even in the midst of the madness.