China Courier Challenge

I long ago accepted that performing mundane tasks in China requires two steps more than in the United States. Bank trips easily take an hour, and I would potentially prefer catching the bubonic plague than entering the post office to send a package home.

One of the most heinous of all chores is waiting for the bike courier outside the massive gates of the school. While I have heard rumors that e-tickets are now available in China, I have yet to experience that wonder of modernity. My trip preparation involves collecting an overflowing envelop of the pink 100 Yuan bills and wait for a random man on a beat-up bike with a helmet and a fanny pack containing my plane ticket or whatever item that I blindly believed would pedal up to my door. Last week that exchange involved a painfully bursting envelop of cash for a partially translucent receipt that vaguely promised a deposit for a Yangtze River Cruise this summer. In essence the slip said, “I O U one Yangtze River Cruise”.

I have diligently awaited the arrival of the bike courier through the drenching rains and umbrella torturing winds of typhoons (Typhoon Wipa to be exact) and the smoky fog from hundreds of farmers outside Shanghai burning the stubs of their harvested crops.

In fact, whenever I schedule to meet a courier is when Shanghai is hit with freakish weather that is rarely forecasted and almost always guaranteed to soak my tickets before I’m able to transport them back to the safety of my apartment. Last night certainly did not break my pattern of courier challenges.

I miss the thunderstorms of my home state, but I don’t want the first one I’ve seen after seven months in China to be while I’m standing along the street, carrying a flimsy travel umbrella like yesterday. I was waiting for my custom-made jeans to be delivered from my previous Fabric Market Extravaganza. When I went to collect them last week, the tailor apologetically informed me that his boss ripped up my order so he will deliver the jeans later in the week.

Students and school workers trickled out of the gate while I clinch the money tightly. I felt like I was involved in some sort of illicit transaction. I was the sketchy foreigner hovering outside the schoolyard with a bag full of money, waiting for a complete stranger to deliver the goods.

I tried to make eye contact with every cyclist on the street since I’ve learned that if the biker acknowledges me, he’s probably the guy with the fanny pack of treasure. Unfortunately, bicycles are, categorically, the most popular form of transportation in China. Dozens of bicyclers zoomed passed me with cheap rain parkas billowing out behind them in streaks of yellow, blue, and green.

I waited thirty minutes until my friends met me for dinner. I attempted to leave my money with the guard for when the courier did actually appear. That point of the evening is when I received a street Chinese language lesson; “wait” cannot be combined with “delivery”. Nothing is dreaded more in China than when a native speaker says, “Ting Bu Dong”, which roughly translates to, “I don’t understand what you are saying.” That phrase is what I say on a regular basis, but to hear it back causes a mind scramble to be understood, which reminds me of those moments of panic at trying to figure out answers quickly during math Around-The-World games.

My effort was all for nothing. When I returned to the school after an enjoyable cheeseburger dinner in one of the western districts, my envelop of money was still sitting in the guard’s building, more than slightly crinkled and travel-worn. Now I have one more extra step in China; I must call my tailor today to ‘discuss’ his failed delivery.