Phone???

Just bought a new cell phone. For more than a year our old one has sent us nastygrams about being too full and nothing I deleted seemed to help. Buying a new phone is the same bumps and bruises as it always is to try to get a new electronic device….but times 7 being in another language and culture. We have been through this before here and went back to the man who found us our laptop. We call him “the little man”. (He is short.) I am not really sure what his little kiosk sells, maybe computer mice, and pads. That is what I see setting out at his place. He was introduced to us by another foreign teacher here at BeiDa, as an honest man. He ran around and found us our laptops a year ago when mine gave out. He stuck with us through all the hassles involved in changing it to English, and then Windows failing on us a year later, etc. etc. He has moved his kiosk a few times since then, and it took a bit to find him this spring, but now we have it. Involves a half mile bike ride, through some really big intersections, and then walking another block (with a crutch or cane), then finding the elevator and then another walk. We sat on stools in the middle of a very bustling area while Little Man worked out the kinks. Not minor. (People came by and stared or stopped and talked to us. Of the hundreds and hundreds of people there, I am sure we were the only expats.) He did not know most of this stuff and had to keep running around to various expert friends to figure out how to use the phone. It took well over an hour. I knew that we could never do it alone, ever. I doubt I could have done this in the US, being technological immigrants, but it was completely beyond us doing it in half English, half Chinese. But he hung in there with us and got us up and running. We are so thankful for the gracious help that is often offered to us here. People complain about service at times, but overall we always get what we need, and usually with a smile and a handshake.