Saturday, March 10, 2012
In other news,
My new computer auto-corrects "xie xie" to read "die die." In case you are wondering, these do not mean the same thing.
Ji whiz.
So, I've discovered that most things ending in "ji" are some type of electronic device or appliance, loosely translated "machine." For example, my cell phone is a "shou ji" or "hand machine" and my washing machine is a "Xi yi ji" or "wash clothes machine." Ten points for logic, Mandarin. Well, done.
However, I have also noticed that these various "ji"s in China tend to have matching personalities. While my American-made (or at least, American bought) machines tend to have a rebellious spirit, often making inexplicable choices to thwart my daily routines, my Chinese machines tend to make commentary on my decisions from a distinctly Chinese perspective. While I base this observation purely on a single recent incident, I am confident I will find other examples.
My washing machine, bless its cotton socks, has been broken for about two weeks now. When I finally tidied my bathroom sufficiently to ask a maintenance worker to try and fix it (in Chinese, no less, so that was entertaining), he spent about an hour confirming what I had claimed to be true, that it always stops at the same point in the wash cycle and makes beeping noises at me (I assure you, I imitated said beeping noises for his benefit), never finishing the cycle and leaving the clothes too drenched to line dry in the 1.5 square meters that is my bathroom. He then informed me that the machine wouldn't work because my clothes were too heavy. Thanks, China. As if it weren't sufficient that I have to ask for the largest sizes available when I go shopping, and that native Beijingers have no problem stopping a person on the street to tell her she is fat. Not that I have image issues outside of the relative-to-the-local population context, but it is just one of those things that seems so China to me that it's worth repeating and apparently recording for all of blogdom. It is probably irrelevant that we removed several items of clothing leaving only socks and t-shirts, and this still did not solve the problem.
And after all of this, he still didn't actually figure out what was causing the pausing and beeping (weishenme? I asked, but to no avail) and simply showed me how to restart the washing machine and set it to complete the final step of the cycle independently. Way to solve the problem without actually solving the problem. I feel like there has to be a spectrum of immediate to long term efficiency, and this doesn't quite fall at the right end of it. Although, this is sort of like the time I unplugged my car battery every time I left my car to keep the battery from dying because the headlights wouldn't shut off. Perhaps I have little room to point fingers.
However, I have also noticed that these various "ji"s in China tend to have matching personalities. While my American-made (or at least, American bought) machines tend to have a rebellious spirit, often making inexplicable choices to thwart my daily routines, my Chinese machines tend to make commentary on my decisions from a distinctly Chinese perspective. While I base this observation purely on a single recent incident, I am confident I will find other examples.
My washing machine, bless its cotton socks, has been broken for about two weeks now. When I finally tidied my bathroom sufficiently to ask a maintenance worker to try and fix it (in Chinese, no less, so that was entertaining), he spent about an hour confirming what I had claimed to be true, that it always stops at the same point in the wash cycle and makes beeping noises at me (I assure you, I imitated said beeping noises for his benefit), never finishing the cycle and leaving the clothes too drenched to line dry in the 1.5 square meters that is my bathroom. He then informed me that the machine wouldn't work because my clothes were too heavy. Thanks, China. As if it weren't sufficient that I have to ask for the largest sizes available when I go shopping, and that native Beijingers have no problem stopping a person on the street to tell her she is fat. Not that I have image issues outside of the relative-to-the-local population context, but it is just one of those things that seems so China to me that it's worth repeating and apparently recording for all of blogdom. It is probably irrelevant that we removed several items of clothing leaving only socks and t-shirts, and this still did not solve the problem.
And after all of this, he still didn't actually figure out what was causing the pausing and beeping (weishenme? I asked, but to no avail) and simply showed me how to restart the washing machine and set it to complete the final step of the cycle independently. Way to solve the problem without actually solving the problem. I feel like there has to be a spectrum of immediate to long term efficiency, and this doesn't quite fall at the right end of it. Although, this is sort of like the time I unplugged my car battery every time I left my car to keep the battery from dying because the headlights wouldn't shut off. Perhaps I have little room to point fingers.
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