from the customer service department

earlier this week, on monday to be precise, i was walking home from work in very low spirits. this is noteworthy because i am rarely in very low spirits. i have a few hypotheses. (1) maybe it was because i had a disheartening day on the frontlines of the rule of law reform in china. a conversation about the need to harmonize the state secrets law with the recent open government information regulations, accountability problems, and the fact that most courts are interested in avoiding responsibility for anything really illuminated for me how an independent judiciary is crucial for the rule of law. the rest, to some extent, is window dressing. with that insight, i had this strange sinking feeling of futility. unpleasant. (2) maybe it was because i suddenly missed my nyc friends after seeing pics from a dear friend's trapeze-and-cupcakes themed 30th bday party. (3) maybe it was because little trouble is out of town and i missed him. little trouble is my boyfriend. that is the literal translation of the current iteration of his chinese name - xiaofan. the pronunciation has more or less stayed the same, but the characters have varied. i believe that the latest version - little trouble - has staying power because it is not difficult to write and because it suits.

for any of these reasons or all of them, i was walking home full of woe. i was not charmed by the aggressive restaurant pushers along ghost street who tried to pull me into their establishments. i was so busy wallowing in my woe that i forgot to return the grinning greeting from the elderly, simple gentleman who is always sitting at the end of the alley with his neighbourhood volunteer red armband on, watching the to-ings and fro-ings. i arrived at my doorstep ready to go inside and write melodramatic emails or listen to sarah mclachlan. or both. (not a good place to be.)

instead, i discovered the following notice waiting for me:

Dear tenants:

Tomorrow (May.5th) after 9:00 am, the men from Sanitary Station will come to spray insecticide. Please close your window and tidy away your clothes ahead of time.
By the way, about the H1N1 Flu, please take care of yourself, if you have a fever, catch cold or some other flu symptoms, and please inform us on time.
Thanks for your cooperation!

Yours sincerely,
Customer service department
4th May.2009

i burst out laughing. the heaviness of my day seemed to dissipate and the world just seemed a little bight lighter. i love the 'by the way" bit about the swine flu. china, as i am sure you have heard, has taken what some might call a pig-headed approach to the swine flu problem. there was the detention of all mexican passport-holders, some paranoid potential airport procedures developed, and a nasty spat with the mexican government about who was to blame in the first place. nothing like a disease from pigs to bring out the best in common humanity. what was it you said, anne? we're all dark on the inside, there is no light? ; ). the "by the way" in the customer service department notice was so good that i almost didn't mind the idea that men were going to be spraying insecticide on my laundry if i didn't look out. (when i shared this notice with little trouble, he focused on that and convinced me to be sure to have left the compound before the spraying commenced. i explained that i had shared the notice with him to laugh about the bird flu bit, not stress about whatever terrible potions were going to be poured on the rosebushes. i'm not sure if he found it quite as funny as i did. what can i see? he's a germaphobe. i'm addicted to street food. i think there is balance in there somewhere.)

luckily for me, though, even if i were to "have fever, catch cold, or some other flu symptoms" and decide to report that to the customer service department so they could check me into the nearest holding cell, i have reason to believe that it would generally be a pleasant experience. while i don't think any of the various civil rights issues that were raised by the government's iron-beaked response to SARS ever really resonated much within china, and while clearly sino-mexican relations have seen better days, there seems to be an effort to make quarantine comfortable this time around. as the china daily reported, those currently in quarantine in hong kong are being "showered with gifts": http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-05/05/content_7743569.htm

gift showers? these are downpours:

- The Immigration Department has been directed to extend the guests' visas if they expired during the quarantine period.

-The guests have also been offered free stays at other city hotels, calling cards, a travel card each valued at HK$100 and a free ride to the airport.

- If that wasn't enough, each of them will today also get a "gift set", with free movie coupons and admission tickets to Ocean Park, Hong Kong Disneyland and Ngong Ping Cable Car.

the most important thing, according to hong kong secretary for commerce and economic development rita lau ng wai-lan, is that "tourists take back with them a good experience of hong kong." awash in gifts, how could they not?

coming home to discover that notice and have it shake me to my senses was just the sort of sudden shift in perspective that convinces me god has a sense of humour. (well, that and things like the advertising campaign that was apparently launched by the hong kong tourism board just before SARS broke with the slogan: "hong kong, it'll take your breath away".) (it was a very short-lived campaign.)

my perspective held for the rest of the week. now i am off to contemplate chinese-style spicy chicken wings and mashed potatoes at the hot bean cooperative. yum.