Defining Mafan

Mafan is one of my favorite Chinese words. It's incredibly useful for describing a lot of the little quirks of China. The standard translation is bothersome or troublesome but those words just don't quite fully describe the exact meaning of mafan. Here's a good story that illustrates what mafan truly is.

The other evening my subway card was out of money and I needed to add some to it to get home. Easy, right? Theoretically yes, till the mafan stepped in! At the subway station I went to one of the machines for refilling cards. I touched the refill button and was told to insert my card. I put in the proper slot and my card dropped into the machine and vanished. The machine didn't acknowledge that I had even tried to put a card in. Hmmm... Vanished subway card. This isn't good. Those things cost 20rmb. Not a ton of money but not how I wanted to spend my money. Plus machines shouldn't just eat cards like that. So, I got one of the subway worker's attention and explained to him in less than perfect Chinese what happened. He found someone who spoke English to help me. (My Chinese wasn't that bad!) I told her what happened and she told another subway worker. The second subway worker said wait a minute and went behind the machine to open it up and retrieved my card. Whew! That was easier than I was expecting. I thanked both of them for their help and went back to attempting to refill my card. Well, I certainly wasn't going to try that machine again so I went to the next one down the line. I pushed the recharge button and inserted my card. Something in red Chinese characters flashed on the screen too fast for me to even try to read. I selected the English option and tried again. Oh, no recharging on this machine, even though it said Recharge Only on the sign. Ok, one more machine to try. Same thing happened. I went over to the ticket booth. I gave the lady my card and said I wanted to add money. She pointed to her black computer screen and said she couldn't help. Since obviously I wasn't going to refill my card, I tried to buy a single ticket. I gave her a 10rmb note for a 2rmb ticket. She waved her hand no and pointed to the ticket vending machines. So back to those things I went. I tried to put the money in but neither machine would accept it. (If they are out of change, they won't accept bills.) So, I went back to ticket booth to tell the lady that the machines weren't working. She took my 10rmb bill and gave me a five, 3 ones and 2 one rmb coins. I went back to the machines and inserted the coins. Success! I finally had my ticket and could go home.

The next morning, I walked up to a ticket vending machine, inserted my card and 50rmb and had it refilled in less than 30 seconds...

A Real Problem

For those unfamiliar with Chinese utilities, I have to pre-pay for my electricity. I have a card that I take to the bank, put money on it and then insert it into the meter in the hallway of my apartment to add credit. When the credit is gone, it's gone. Lights out. So, I usually watch the meter closely and when it gets down to 50 or so units left (I use about 5 units a day typically and up to 10 or 15 when running my air conditioning), I buy some more.

I was at about the 60 unit mark on Monday so I brought my card with me to stop at the bank. It didn't happen. My 9am to 6:30pm teaching schedule didn't work well with the banks' 9-5 hours. And Chinese banks aren't places that you can run in/run out in under ten minutes during a lunch break. Fortunately it was a cooler week and my fan sufficed to keep me comfortable during the few hours I was home. By Saturday, I was down to 35 units. After a late lunch with Hannah, Teri and Gretl, I went to the bank near my apartment. I got my number and was happy to see that I was number 177 and they were already on 152. Only 25 people in front of me and two windows open! It would be a pretty quick wait of about 20 minutes to half an hour. I sat down and play Tetris on my phone. Finally it was my turn. I went up to the window, gave the teller my card and money, paid a water bill that had appeared on my door (this is normal), got my change and left.

As soon as I got home I put the card in the meter. Nothing. Tried it another way. Maybe the magnetic square faces the other way. Nothing. Tried it the first way again. Nothing. Hmmm... This was not good. The teller must have forgotten to add the money to my card. I wasn't watching her the whole time since I was looking for change and the water bill in my purse but I didn't remember her charging it. So, back to the bank I went.

I talked to the guy at the front who helps you get a number for the right line. I explained what happened and he went to ask the teller about it. She said that I had to call the number at the bottom of my receipt and they would take care of it. I told him I couldn't do that because my Chinese isn't good enough and I had forgotten my phone at school. He kindly offered to call for me. After a couple minutes of conversation, he came back and explained to me half in Chinese, half in English that the lady at the phone number place could speak English and that I would need to know how much electricity was left and how had been bought the last couple times. I said I didn't know about the last couple times because my friend had bought it. He said all the info I needed would be on the meter. As we were talking some overly helpful (nosy) costumer came up and told me in English that I needed to put the card in the meter and I should just go home and try it again. I told him in Chinese that I had lived in China for more than 4 years and am quite familiar with how to use an electric card. His response: Oh, so this is a real problem. Yes, I smiled sweetly growling inside, as opposed to me being a stupid foreigner problem. Arg! I thanked the bank employee for his help and went home.

I tried the card in the meter one more time. It flashed 485 units! Yeah! It worked this time! Why? Who knows? Maybe it wasn't a "real" problem after all...

Nacho're Average Nachos

While in Shanghai, Amanda and I decided to get dinner at at The Bund Brewery. She had been there before and said that the food was a bit pricey but worth it. We sat down and she realized that the menus were not the same as before. The selection was much smaller and the prices much higher. We each ordered an overpriced beer and decided just to split a plate of nachos. Before we ordered, we wisely questioned the waitress about the $10 plate of nachos whose Chinese name translated to Mexican Corn Biscuits. The conversation went a bit like this though it was mostly in Chinese when talking to the waitress:

Me: The nachos have beef on them, right?
Waitress: No, it's pork.
Me: (to Amanda) Pork on nachos? (to Waitress): Can we switch the pork to chicken?
Waitress: No.
Me: Ok. (to Amanda) Do you want pork nachos?
Amanda: No! We can just get them with cheese.
Me:(to waitress) The nachos have what's the word... cheese on them, right?
Waitress: No cheese.
Me: What?! Gross. (to Amanda) No cheese on the nachos. (to waitress) What is on the nachos?
Waitress: (doesn't understand my bad Chinese) What?
Me: The nachos have pork on them and what else? Vegetables?
Waitress: Yes, vegetables.
Me: What vegetables? The picture shows hot peppers and cilantro.
Waitress: Yes.
Me: That's it?!? (to Amanda)Evidently they are pork, hot pepper and cilantro nachos without cheese for $10.
Amanda: No.
Me: (to waitress) We don't want the nachos. We'll just drink beer for now. Thank you!

After finishing our beers, we went to a different part of the city and had an equally pricey but much more authentically prepared dinner of Pad Thai.

How to get a train ticket in Beijing

My friend Amanda and I wanted to find some time to see each other while we both are in China. She lives in a smaller city about two hours outside of Shanghai. Originally, I was going to spend the weekend in her city but after checking plane ticket prices and train schedules, it just wasn't possible. Our next plan was to go to Shanghai and meet there. Great! There are tons of trains that go from Beijing to Shanghai. I could leave Thursday night and be there in the morning. Buying a ticket shouldn't be a problem at all...

The next morning after tutoring, my student's dad took me to a train ticket booth near their home. No overnight tickets to Shanghai left. Rats! So much for that plan. There were tickets still available on the new high speed train. However, I would need to go to the train station with my passport to get one. The train station? The train station that the high speed trains to Shanghai leave from is on the opposite side of town from where I live! Fortunately, I could go to any train station to buy my ticket.

Unfortunately my afternoon tutoring went late and I wasn't sure if I'd have time to get to the train station before it closed so I decided to wait until the next morning.

The next day I tried again to get my train ticket to Shanghai. After 30 some minutes on the subway, I finally got to Beijing North Station. As soon as I got in line, I realized that my passport was still at home! Arg! I stayed anyways hoping I could finagle my way to a ticket with bad Chinese and my driver's license. I waited in a line that was super slow. Just to be safe, I asked the girls in front of me if this was the right line for high speed train tickets. It wasn't, of course. I needed to be at the other ticketing area. So, I went there. This time I went up to the window that I knew was for returning tickets but didn't have a line (aka only 3-4 people in front of me). The lady at the window yelled at me but at least I was able to confirm I was in the right place. I was at the back of the line again.
To entertain myself while waiting, I attempted to read the board that listed the number of tickets left for the next couple days for various trains leaving from the four Beijing train stations. (Interesting note: when I moved here 5 years ago, there were only two train stations). "Attempted" as in everything was all in Chinese characters and the cities changed every 15 seconds. I could read a few cities and recognized some as it quickly flipped through the lists. After about ten minutes I still hadn't seen anything for Shanghai. Finally all the high speed trains were listed but they flashed by so fast I wasn't sure if I had read the numbers correctly for Thursday and Friday. I waited and watched for them to come up again. When they finally did, I was able to see that there were literally hundreds of tickets left for Friday morning. Yeah! I also noticed about that time that the line I was standing in had only barely moved. I looked to the front and saw that there was no one at the window selling tickets. What!?! I gave up. Since I knew there were so many tickets available, I left with the plan to come back the next day.

Thursday turned out to be a super busy day for me since I needed to get ready for my classes next week if I was going to be out of town for the whole weekend. I finally got to the train station just before 5:00. I was happy to see that the lines were a lot shorter! After a few minutes, one of the ticket sellers announced over the loud speaker, "blah,blah, blah 5:30 blah blah" which I took to mean the ticket windows closed at 5:30. The closer I got to the window and the later it got, I felt like everyone was glaring at me: that stupid foreigner is going to be really slow at the window. But hey, buying train tickets Chinese is one of my best areas of Chinese. Whew! I was able to get my ticket no problem and I got a return ticket (this is new, before you could only buy tickets in the city you were leaving from). Success!

I left my apartment at 6am today for my 7:39 train. I had about 22 stops and three line transfers on the subway to get to the South train station and no way was I going to risk missing my train. I was happy that it took less than an hour to get there. The south train station looks brand new and was very easy to get to and find where I needed to go. I was surprised to see a Tous Le Jours, a local "French" bakery chain, where I got a pastry and a coffee for breakfast. I found the waiting area for my train which was already boarding. I got on right away, found my seat and enjoyed my breakfast. As I write this, I'm watching the Chinese countryside fly by as we speed toward Shanghai at 306km/h.