From Rebekah….

My office mate at United International College tells me, “Never try to do anything in a hurry in China. Everything takes longer than you think.” I must learn to recite, “Everything takes longer than you think” in the morning before I start the day.

On a Wednesday morning I leave the apartment at 11:15 am in order to teach a 2:00pm workshop on song writing. The college is only a 15-minute bus ride from home and I am prepared except for printing three handouts for my 20 students. Will 2 hours and 45 minutes be enough time?

I stop at the grocery store next to our apartment to quickly buy cookies to share with my students. I find the Oreos with no trouble and am the only person in the checkout line. I’m thinking I am making good time, when I discover the clerk is out of change. I don’t have my Chinese debit card with me, so I am stuck standing at the register while the manager saunters over, has a long discussion in Chinese with the clerk, disappears to the back of the store, then reappears with money.

Now I am on my way to the bus stop across the street. Bus Number 68 passes; bus number 10 passes; bus number 14 passes. Where is a 69 or 10A? Eight minutes pass when a 69 comes. I’m on the bus; I have a seat; I’ll be at the college in 15 minutes. But what is happening? Why is the bus turning into the gas station? How can a city bus run out of gas in the middle of the day?

Finally I am at the bus stop near the college. I hop off and walk very quickly the 10 minutes to the college, up four flights of stairs, down the hallway where I switch on my computer and - nothing happens! The worksheets I need for my class at 2:00pm are attached to an e-mail missive I sent myself from my laptop at home. It’s 12:15pm and everyone from IT department is at lunch until 2:00pm. I find another professor down the hall who is willing to let me use his computer to download the worksheets, edit them, and print them. Oh no! The documents don’t print! They are wandering somewhere in the mysterious world of computer-space. Back to the colleague’s office to try again. Back to the printing room – ah it worked this time. Now all I have to do is copy them. Humidity is not so high today so only one paper jam and I am ready for class. It’s only 1:15 and I have time to reflect on the saying, “Everything takes longer than you think in China.”