At home

Friday was my first full day at my apartment. So the day was put aside for various domestic
tasks and other immediately pressing issues. First on the list was the need to get a bank
account. No need to add that this is one of the innumerable things we take for granted
back home but which becomes a source of complication and difficulty in a foreign land.
We need to get a Chinese bank account because that is where the Peace Corps will deposit
our stipend. We also have the option of getting a bank card which will make it easier to
withdraw money and to use as a credit card. Now there is a lesson in our language book
which is supposed to prepare you for getting a bank account, but it is in essence worthless,
as there is no way to carry out this task without the help of a native speaker. I got up to the point
where you state "wo yao kaihu" (I want to open a bank account) and after the response realized I
would have to get some help. Thankfully, I ran into someone from the waiban office (note:
the waiban is the office in charge of dealing with foreign students, teachers, etc.) who very
went with me and very patiently walked me through the process. Like Blanche Dubois,
I am constantly relying on the kindness of strangers.

With Chinese debit card in hand, I went to the big department/grocery store here and
purchased a toaster oven and a dvd player. Ovens of any sort are not commonplace over
here, and most of the cooking is done on the stove top. Bread is not a staple, so anything that
would be involved in the toasting of bread would be a strange device. Nonetheless, there
are enough Westerners here that the big department store keeps a small supply of toaster
and toaster ovens in stock. Indeed, when I went there a week ago they were completely
out doubtless because of the number of Peace Corps volunteers heading to far away sites
where they would find no such commodity. But today there were a few in stock and I
purchased one for about twenty five American dollars (two hundred kwai/rmb). Unlike
the situation with toasters and toaster ovens, there are no shortage of electronic devices.
The situation with dvds is interesting because Japanese DVDs will not play on American
DVD players, not that anyone has an American DVD player here, although
many people (including myself) have DVD drives on their computers. But since there
is a t.v. in my apartment, I thought I would get a dvd player. The choices are ovewhelming,
but I picked one of the cheapest ones on sale at about twenty American dollars. The problem,
of course, was once you get it home everything is in Chinese. I figured that if worse
comes to worse I would be able to get someone to help me hook it up as with the
bank account. But surprisingly I was able to figure out what plugs go where and how to
start and run the whole thing and even watched a few movies yesterday.