Every once in a while, something happens here that reminds me how much I haven't learned yet. It has been very cold here - mid 30s and my hands are starting to get chapped. I have a small bottle of lotion that I brought with me, but it's just about gone, so I decided to go to Watson's and purchase some more. Watson's is a drugstore chain and it has a lot of foreign products - I can buy Oil of Olay body wash, Colgate toothpaste and even Nivea hand lotion - at least in theory.
Going to the store takes a lot of time - I don't know the word for lotion, so my method is scanning each aisle and then looking for specifics. I eventually found the lotion aisle and a bottle of Nivea intensive hand lotion. It was just over a dollar, so I decided that I would buy it. Then, I had to find the cash register which wasn't too difficult and stand in line. Chinese people don't really like to wait in line, so it is necessary to stake a claim to a spot of floor and defend it with your elbows or coat and prevent other people from getting in front of you. The "line" was really long, but after about 15 minutes I finally made it to the front. I handed the clerk my bottle of lotion and she let out a sigh and handed it to another attendent. He looked at my bottle of lotion and said, "You get different, this test."
It seems I had managed to choose the "tester" bottle of lotion out of all of the bottles. Of course, it was clearly marked "tester" in Chinese, but unfortunately the characters for "tester" haven't been among the 50 or so that I've memorized thus far. I think in the States if this had happened they would have offered to go get me another bottle, but not here. They just pointed to the back of the line. I had waited for nothing.
At this point, I had had enough. I had already been in the drugstore over half an hour and was batting zero. I left without the lotion. I'm sure this'll be funny some day - I remember the time we completely confused a clerk in a Spanish supermarket in the candy department when we said that we wanted to buy esponjas instead of esponjitas (sponges instead of marshmallows) - but at the moment it's just overwhelming. And my hands are still chapped.
Q - Any frustrating stories about your trips? Amusing ones would be appreciated.
Hope to hear from you soon.
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2 comments:
In France in 1967, some kids were suffering from Montezuma's revenge while we were all in Paris on a short trip. They went into the pharmacy to get some help from the friendly pharmacist. They got the word for "diarrhea" mixed up with the word for "constipation." They spent almost the entire trip on the commode. Oh well, they survived. They were young!
ANGERS II
when my parents took us to europe in middle school (i was 12 but soon to be 13), we were staying in a hotel room in brussels. since it was a hot summer night, we slept with the window open for some air. well right outside my window was a nest of insects and when i woke up in teh morning i was covered in bed bites. i remember counting something like 60 on one hand alone. so my dad had to run to the drug store and get me calamine lotion to stop itching. so he came back and i went to the bathroom to apply it and the first thing i did was drop the glass bottle on the tile floor and there was calamine lotion everywhere. so back to the drug store he had to go...he wasn't too happy with that.
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