Things I miss about England #4: Taking a bath

From the title you might imagine that by now, after almost a year continuously in China, I am getting pretty smelly. Not so. It isn't washing that I miss it is very specifically lying in a bathtub of hot soapy water up to my neck. Chinese apartments don't generally have baths. I've been in lots of apartments and the bathing arangements are always the same - tiled wet room showers. You don't even get a western style shower with a shower tray and a curtain. It's a room - usually the one with the sink, the toilet and the washing machine - with tiled walls and floor and a grill over a hole for the water to run away.

Now I had, as I've mentioned before, a particularly inefficient shower with cold water and low pressure. I replaced it and now have a shower with nice hot water and high pressure. It's efficient and I'm nice and clean but I want a bath.

I want to fill a tub of water climb in and soak - something I managed while I was in England last summer but haven't managed since.

I mentioned this difference to a colleague who pointed out that there is a public bathing house but public means public. You all soak in the same water at the same time in a large bath and that's something I just  don't care to do. I'd rather just take the shower. hell I'd rather be dirty if that was the only option.

In all my time here I have only once seen an apartment with an actual bath and believe me I was tempted to ask if I might use it but as I was just there waiting for a friend of a friend to direct us to a nearby restaurant it seemed rather too forward.

If I knew a hotel with baths in the rooms I'd book in for a night every now and then just to relax in the hot water but the hotels are all the same - showers only.

Oh well, sooner or later I'll be going home and taking a bath will be top of my list of things to do.

Everyone in China is my dad

I loved my dad. Splendid fellow. Salt of the Earth and all that.

Like everyone else he had his failings and one of his failings was the perception gap between how good he thought he was at DIY and how good he actually was. When a job needed doing he got it done but he was a "never use a screw where a nail will do" kind of a DIYer. He also didn't believe in following, or even reading, instructions. I once saw him with one of those large cardboard boxes of cheap paint. Had it been a tin of paint he'd have prised the lid off with a screwdriver and set to work but the box flumoxed him. Instead of looking at the clear label on the side he took a hacksaw and sawed the top off. And set to work.

Here in China I'm constantly reminded of this approach to things. But here it isn't just my dad: it isn't just every dad that ever squeezed a handful of plumbers' putty around a leaking pipe: it isn't just every DIY enthusiast whose skills fail to live up to his ambition. It's everybody.

I've talked before how everything works but nothing works well. You've seen the video of how the shower was wired into my death-trap bathroom.

Actually, it's the shower I'd like to talk about.

Last week I went to take a shower. I turned the water on and there was a bright flash, a loud bang and a distinct smell of burning.

A smell of burning is never good, is it?

So I went outside to this fusebox.

I reset the breakers and went in. No effect.
So I went into the kitchen to this fusebox.

I reset the breaker. 

Nothing.

So I called it in to get an electrician.

He got the power back on in a few minutes. Apparently there is yet another fusebox somewhere in the building that had tripped.

Then he looked at the wiring that had caused the problem. He shook his head and made that sucking noise that electricians all over the world learn on the first day at trade school. He told me, via a translator, that (I'm rendering this very loosely) the shower had been fitted by cowboys who had used cable too light for the job. He left the original cable there and ran a second, heavier duty cable directly to the shower.

One week later.

Wanting to check the electrically powered water meter I plugged the original plug in.

Bang. 

Flash. 

Burning. 

You get the picture. 

Now it all gets rather comical. For you anyway. Not so comical for me.

I walked outside to reset the breakers.

I reset the breakers. 

I looked at the door. The door that had closed behind me. The door that can only be opened with a key. The key that was inside the apartment. The apartment I was now locked out of.

I had been about to take a wash. I was wearing a pair of jeans and a pair of house slippers. And nothing else. I felt in my pocket for my phone to call my friend who has my spare keys. My phone that was next to my keys on the table inside the apartment.

It's only a five minute walk to my friends apartment but in five minutes a half-naked man can attract a lot of attention as he climbs over the roadworks and hobbles through the mud. All the way I was repeating a mantra of "Please, let her be in. Please, let her be in."

She was in and I soon had my keys, a woman's cut lavender coloured T-sheet and money for a taxi back.

I called for the electrician who reset the power again and took another look at the old cable. We decided that I didn't need it at all and took it down. With the cable in my hands I discovered exactly what the problem was. It was actually two pieces of cable that had been joined by twisting the exposed wires together and "insulating" them with sellotape. That's right. Sellotape. It had gone unnoticed because it had then been sellotaped to the back of a water pipe and couldn't be seen from the bathroom.

As I looked at it I couldn't help thinking, "Dad would have been proud."

Not the sort of blog that does many links, but...

Anyone who is a fan of the original series of Star Trek and wishes there had been a season 4 should watch this. Episode 1 of Season 4:Pilgrim of Eternity.

It's really rather well done and several of the actors have the mannerisms down perfectly.

I'll be watching out for future episodes. I think you will be too.

The most frustrating thing about China

There are many little niggles about life in China that make things difficult or frustrating but for my money the utter impossibility of getting information about anything is about the worst.

We are now three (or maybe four or maybe five) weeks from the end of term. I have a summer job in another city and I need to book a flight. But I can't, because no one can tell me when the term actually ends. Not only that, but they can't tell me when they will be able to tell me when the term actually ends. Or, in an amazing bit of meta-obfuscation, when they will be able to tell me when they will be able to tell me when the term ends.

If I don't book the flight now I will end up having to pay double or treble for it and, I have been told, there is a serious possibility that I won't find out when the term ends until the morning of the actual day so I won't be able to even get onto a flight.

I'm not kidding.

I have in the past been given about one hour's notice that a holiday is starting - told at eleven O'clock in the morning that the holiday starts at twelve. I have had many conversations with Chinese colleagues where I have asked how they organise things and the answer is a blank stare, a "what does 'organise' mean" kind of stare. If I can manage to explain what I mean they seem baffled that anyone would want or need more than a day's notice.

And this is how it is. Always.