Taizhou Sept 8, 2005
So I saw Monica get snippy with someone for the first time, a bank teller and her manager. We've been putting off my having a bank account for two weeks because the first time we tried to get me one we were told I needed my VISA paperwork taken care of first. So my passport has been floating around govt offices for two weeks and came back with my work VISA yesterday and Monica and I are off to the bank.
The teller, a different one, said they didn't need the VISA, they needed a photocopy of my passport, at which point Monica got seriously annoyed. Of course, I didn't know why because this argument is in Chinese, but the next thing I know Monica gets up, tells me to sit in the chair (thus keeping my place in line), and starts to leave. I ask why and she says she needs to go back to the office to get a photocopy of my passport, and I say, "But I have one in my bag." I've been carrying a photocopy of my passport around in my bag for a month, just in case I lost the passport. I probably made it in the first place for my trip to Europe. All hail the worrywort, and now I have a savings account, and at the end of the year I can turn them into dollars.
Monica told me about how she had to call a boy into the office. He had three girlfriends at the same time, plus he wasn't a junior, and it's against school policy to date the first two years. Normally the teachers ignore a student's personal life unless the grades suffer, and apparently his did. The college actually had his parents make the four hour trip to Taizhou to chew him out. When Monica talked to one of the girls, she asked the girl why she was willing to share the same boyfriend with two others. "We all like him," was the answer. So Monica, who is 25, tells me that she doesn't understand the younger generation. Yes, Chinese is changing so fast these days generational change amounts to 6 years.
I told all this to a friend of mine in Nanjing, and she told me she feels generational change between her and her older brother, too, but she didn't go into detail.
The teller, a different one, said they didn't need the VISA, they needed a photocopy of my passport, at which point Monica got seriously annoyed. Of course, I didn't know why because this argument is in Chinese, but the next thing I know Monica gets up, tells me to sit in the chair (thus keeping my place in line), and starts to leave. I ask why and she says she needs to go back to the office to get a photocopy of my passport, and I say, "But I have one in my bag." I've been carrying a photocopy of my passport around in my bag for a month, just in case I lost the passport. I probably made it in the first place for my trip to Europe. All hail the worrywort, and now I have a savings account, and at the end of the year I can turn them into dollars.
Monica told me about how she had to call a boy into the office. He had three girlfriends at the same time, plus he wasn't a junior, and it's against school policy to date the first two years. Normally the teachers ignore a student's personal life unless the grades suffer, and apparently his did. The college actually had his parents make the four hour trip to Taizhou to chew him out. When Monica talked to one of the girls, she asked the girl why she was willing to share the same boyfriend with two others. "We all like him," was the answer. So Monica, who is 25, tells me that she doesn't understand the younger generation. Yes, Chinese is changing so fast these days generational change amounts to 6 years.
I told all this to a friend of mine in Nanjing, and she told me she feels generational change between her and her older brother, too, but she didn't go into detail.