When we first came to China, during the first semester of our teaching experience here, Dave had his students write a letter of appreciation to their parents. This exercise was meant to teach the kids some English vocabulary that maybe they weren't used to using, like "thank you," and I appreciate all you did for me," etc. It may be a universal, college age kid phenomenon -- that of ingratitude. The students wrote their letters in English. Some wrote their letters in both English and Mandarin. Dave provided envelopes to the kids, and they addressed them in Chinese Characters so the Chinese Postal Service wouldn't have to translate them or more likely, just throw them in the trash . He had approximately 300 students that participated in this exercise. So as you can imagine, we had to buy a lot of envelopes. They're not that expensive here, so that wasn't the problem. We went to RT-Mart to buy the envelopes. We didn't really know how much they would cost at that point in our China experience -- but we were sure that we could afford to buy some envelopes. We weren't really expert in the money exchange thing yet either. When we finally got to the front of the queue, and it was our turn to pay -- the cashier said we owed 1,200 RMB -- so we pulled out the wallet and paid. It seemed a bit much, but we paid the tab, and headed home. At home, we started to question the price of the envelopes. When we took a closer look at the receipt, we discovered that the cashier had accidentally hit an extra zero for the cost of each packet of envelopes, and we had been charged about ten times more than we should have paid. The experience involved another trip back to the store (Remember, we don't have a car!) and we were quickly compensated for the mistake. (But not for the inconvenience or time lost.) Oh well.. . . . . live and learn.
Yesterday, Dave was out at the west campus teaching, and I did some grocery shopping. I usually like to go grocery shopping with Dave, because we are used to doing most everything together here in China, but mainly, because groceries can be pretty heavy, and I like him to shoulder half the load. Since I didn't have him with me, I also thought it would be okay to reward myself with a little treat. When I say "little," I mean really small. These cups of Haagen-Dazs ice cream hold at the most, a half cup of ice cream. We sometimes shop at a little tiny shop called Jenny's. They import some American products that we can't find elsewhere. In the past, we've bought Magnum Ice-Cream Bars at Jenny's, and they cost six RMB -- a little under a dollar each. As I got to the front of the line, and was ready to pay, a nice looking, elderly Chinese man said "hello" in English, and I returned his greeting. We started to discuss the nice weather outside, but it was time for me to pull my money out of my wallet and pay -- so I did so, without really paying attention to how much I was paying. At the time, I briefly, just for a second, thought, "Wow, that sounds like a lot." But it was nice to have found someone that spoke English, and I quickly dismissed it. When I got home, and was putting away the groceries, I pulled out my receipt from Jenny's and sure enough, I had been charged 40 RMB for each little cup of ice cream. My immediate thought was that the cashier had stuck a zero on the end, by accident. So after I got all the groceries put away, and after I ate one of the ice cream cups, I put my sweater back on and returned to the store to get my reimbursement for the error they had made. I should let you know that 40 RMB is $5.71. And I bought two of them -- so I had paid $11.42 for one cup of ice cream! When I showed my receipt, expecting an apology, and a return of my over-payment, I was politely told that 40 RMB was indeed the right price, and because it was imported, she had to charge that much. Oh my goodness! I was flabbergasted! I had eaten some very, very expensive ice cream! Thank goodness it tasted really, really good. The strawberry flavor is my favorite Haagen Dazs ice cream flavor. The Macadamia Nut flavor was really good too. I indulged myself with the second small cup of ice cream -- to compensate for the stressful experience!
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