Today we decided to pay the gas bill because we didn’t want to risk having the gas cut off. It was overdue a few months but it was a well-known fact that the gas company was tolerant and on the bill it said that the nearest payment office was near the Second Bridge, a long way from our place. BMW discovered that there was a payment office not too far from our home so we set out to pay the bill. Can you guess? Yes, that office only took payments for gas cards, cards that could be inserted into the meter to keep the gas running. Our meter is the old style, manually read. The staff informed us the only alternative we had to going all the way to Xiao Ping Mao (a beautiful transliteration of Shopping Mall) was to have our landlord set up an account we could pay into. After our experience with our last landlord there was no way I was prepared to do that.
We boarded a bus and made the tedious journey to the gas company’s building near Xiao Ping Mao and found the right section to pay our account at. The girl there was more helpful and knowledgeable and told BMW that we could pay at branches of a couple of banks by stating we were tenants, giving our gas account details and setting up an automatic payment. Hooray! The journey was worth it after all. It was a tedious day and I became irritable. I was thankful, though, that the temperature, which was 37 degrees (official) and by my reckoning 39 the day before, had been reduced by heavy rain overnight and held at about 31 all day by cloud and light rain. After Queensland 31 is quite bearable for me.
When it is all boiled down this is an example of an information problem. It appears to me that in China there are serious difficulties with the giving and receiving of information. Inconveniences caused by poor information streaming are so common as to indicate a basic problem in the construction of Chinese behaviour.
- I want to send a letter to my friend but my friend has no letter box.
- My friend has a letter box but tells me there is no mail delivery to his apartment and the guards at the gate refuse to accept letters on behalf of the tenants.
- A teacher arrives at the classroom to discover her students have gone for the annual medical check-up.
- Two people want to set a date for their wedding but the boss has not announced what period the company will close for during the National holiday week, which is next week.
- A waitress is asked about the ingredients of a dish on the menu but has not been trained in that one and doesn’t know.
- A gas company cashier doesn’t know all the ways people can pay their bill.
- A telephone company assistant cannot tell a customer about a service the customer wants on her mobile phone. He has never heard of it though the company provides it. Neither has his Supervisor.