Language Fail

I'm back!  We sadly left America about ten days ago, safely landed in Beijing, and I am ready to make this place our home....which means this little blog will be back in full force.  Life was too easy and normal while we were back in DC, but let me tell you, that is not the case here.  So please stay tuned, judging how these past ten days have gone, I think I am going to have some good stories for you....

First let me start my venture back with a little story about the language barrier.  And I am sure this is going to be the first of about a billion entries because I honestly have no idea what anybody is saying all day, every day.  It is truly amazing and I hope entertaining to all of you.

So here's a good one for you....the other day as I was being very good, making my way to the gym, trying very hard to get myself on a normal, healthy routine, I got stuck in our elevator.  Yes, trapped in the elevator.  Umm, this has never happened to me, ever before.  Ever.  Why now, why in China?  Seriously.  This is what I was saying to myself while staring at the ceiling of the little elevator I was stuck inside.  And I am happy to report I have found that I am mostly calm under pressure, do not suffer from claustrophobia, and didn't have to pee my pants.  But I will tell you, I had absolutely no idea what do!  

I took about 4 months of language classes before we came here.  And as a surprise to everyone, I loved it.  I actually oddly had some weird sort of knack for it.  Well that was in class, in a very controlled environment.  I have somehow stepped foot in China and have absolutely no Chinese.  I am not only unable to remember a single useful thing, I also am unable to understand a single word anyone is saying.  Major, major fail.

So here I am, the doors will not open, and I am not letting myself freak out, but I am sort of freaking out, but luckily buttons are universal and I surely know what the bell/alarm button looks like.  So I rang it, and rang it, and then rang it again.  Until someone came on over the intercom in very fast, very inaudible Chinese.  And you would think this would be a good thing, but that is when I panicked.  WTF.  How in the world do I say "I am trapped, get me OUT of here"?!?!?  So as any normal person would do, I just started yelling "open door".  That is all that came to me.  So like a lunatic, I just yelled "open door" "open door" "open door".  I wish I could have seen the person's face.  Not exactly helpful, but thankfully whoever was on the other end was able to put two and two together because in a few minutes I heard some folks outside tinkering on the other side.  But then it got quiet.  And since I never got what they were communicating back to me, I decided that they forgot about me and didn't understand that I was trapped.  I knew it!  So I sounded the alarm, again, several times.  (I have actually always wanted to push that button, so I guess I finally got my chance.)  And this time I decided to yell "how much time"!  Very loudly.  I am shaking my head as I write this, I have no idea why I decided that was the second best thing to yell.  Because I of course was still not conveying what the real problem here was, and second still could not understand whatever they were saying back to my crazy demands.  But again, thankfully, they were on it.  Turns out they were still there, they were just working quietly. 

And working quietly they did for the next HOUR.  Yes, hour.  I was stuck in the Chinese elevator for an hour.  I was okay, I had my iPod.  But you should have seen their faces when they finally pried the door open, wide eyed, sort of scared what would be on the other side, like they were expecting to see some caged, wild, never before seen animal.  But I just popped out, thanked them and got out of there as fast as I could.  I can say thank you, have a nice day really well.  (I am proud of this, because it is the only thing I can do.)

So now I guess to everyone that works here I am the crazy, bell ringing lady who got stuck in the elevator and then ran off like everything was totally fine and normal.  Great, great first impression!

Oh China, I can tell already, this is going to be pretty funny two years!