i shoulda been a plumber

Sept.7

When in China, it isn't rare that sometimes you feel that the worst has gotten the better of you. Whatever the annoyance is, all you want to do is kick/punch/pummel something just to exert that pent up physical frustration boiling inside. I am by far someone who believes in violence as a resolution, but i admit I'm having one of those moments today.

We've deduced that the bloody bathtub is leaking because of a broken pipe under the tub, seeping through the tiled-floor and tiled-walls, causing a mini New Orleans right here in our bathroom.

The maintenance people here in our building are useless and it seems to me, are paid to walk around with walkie-talkies, a clipboard or toolbox - sometimes both - and a clip-on cellphone/pager, looking busy and important. Hah, it's all a disguise. They are infact some of the lamest people i've ever met who call themselves handy-mans, be it plumbers, electricians, security guards, whatever.

The guy who was supposed to come back in the afternoon on Monday never showed because he supposedly couldn't find the other guy who was going to help him remove the tub. A complete waste of my afternoon, and seeing as he didn't have a cell phone, he should've called ME.

I did however manage to ask a woman who works for the building to refer me to someone else who could come and look at the tub. She spent 30 minutes looking it up in a book, finally deciding on one. A lady answers and says she can't come today, she's "hen mang" (very busy). I tell her that it is critical that we fix the tub today because my parents-in-law are arriving tomorrow and it would be a lovely gesture if we could provide them with a proper facilicity to shower in, you know, given that they've flown halfway around the world to see us. She relents and says she'll be there in an hour, but will charge a fee to just come and look at it. Ok fine, i thought, a glimmer of hope. An hour passes, and i'm still waiting. I ring the lady and she says she's on her way "wo ma shang lai" (I'm coming now), "ni deng yi huar" (just wait a while). Unable to do anything more, i wait.

To my surprise, the doorbell rings about 40 minutes later. I open the door and in saunters a short woman with a really sweet face, carrying a bag of cement as if it were lights as feathers and a mixer machine. She was your typical country-girl with rough hands and gritty clothes and while talking to me, she would lift the toilet seat up and hork up some saliva into the bowl. Accustomed to witnessing this in the streets i figured it shouldn't be any different at home. I lead her upstairs to the bathroom and showed her the problem. She says the situation is "hen mafan" (a huge bother). She repeats this about ten times while looking at the tub disapprovingly, shaking her head and spitting into the toilet, all the while standing in old bath water that was curling around her ankles. She was worried that she'll damage the side of the tub more, or worse, the precious expensive bath tiles, and how would she be able to pay for it all? Her husband, who she says can take out the tub and fix the pipe, will be back in a week. I told her i need it done TODAY. She dictates about half a dozen excuses and reasonings as to why "jin tian bu keyi" (today was impossible.) I'm not listening very closely at this point. She called a few other people but they were "hen mang" (very busy). I sighed, Wednesdays must be a popular day to get all your plumbing fixed in this city.

In the end, i was left with her saying "mei banfa" (There's nothing that can be done), and so it was my cue to show her the door and tell her that i'll be waiting for her call when her husband returns. Although my fingers were definitely NOT crossed.


Sept.8, 1:30pm

The sound of water flowing down a pipe. Think about it. How simple the concept is and yet we don't take time to stop and appreciate just how that sound of trickling water down a drain makes our life an infinite number of times less stressful.

For 4 days i've been trying to 'fix' this leakage problem. I've called people from the building to come and look at it (the snake was tried but unsuccessful, and the other guy was too chicken-*hit to touch the thing for fear of damaging it). I asked another plumber, who was referred to by a friend, to come but his excuse was he didn't work outside his neighbourhood.

This morning Matt and I went back to the shop in Hualing where I bought the bathtub back in April. This was the last resort, we had to get someone to fix it, we just had to. The shop called the man who had installed the tub but he refused to come back and look at the problem, saying that he did a perfectly fine job and then hung up. Hmph. So another guy was called and he came to assess the damage. He managed to pull the tub from its place and weed out the worn-out plastic tube that was used to drain the water.

Soon later, two other guys from the building's maintenance department showed up. Why do they all come at once or not at all? With the pipe fixed, all that was left to do was cement the sides and water-proof them with a glue-type seal. Two of the guys got into a huge argument about which method was the best to use. I didn't give much thought to the building guys as they hadn't helped me before. The one from Hualing was good and finished the job.

So for the time being, it's fixed, and as long as it holds up until we leave in several weeks, that's all that really matters.

Well, i may have been long-winded in this entry but honestly, this much hassle deserves a bit of explanation. What i can't get over is that "Mei Banfa, Bu keyi, Hen mafan..." all these are common everyday expressions, like just something that rolls off your tongue when there's an issue to be dealt with. You hear it from shopkeepers, waiters, taxi drivers, even local friends. And yes i admit, even i've caught myself thinking and saying that. The thing is, it's just an excuse to get away from doing what they don't particuarly want to do at the time. In the end, this leakage problem was fixed in just a few hours. Yes it did take a bit more work than just saying there's no solution, it cannot be done, it's too much of a nuisance, or it's just plain impossible, but the thing is there IS a solution, it CAN be done, it truly ISN'T much of a nuisance, and it is by far NOT impossible!