We Must Have a Disconnect

I want the title of this entry on a t-shirt. In English on one side, in Chinese on the other. It came to me in an e-mail today, in which the Chinese property management of one of our housing complexes had been discussing the use of adhesives (currently a problem in said complex) and our (American) Facilities Manager replied with "We must have a disconnect, there is a huge difference between an adhesive as a bonding agent and caulking for tile."

"We must have a disconnect." Those five words pretty well sum up my whole China experience – living, working, eating… anything.

Fully 90% or more of my questions about this place are not those of amazement (How did they…?), nor those of clarification (who/what/where/when…?), but rather those of bewilderment (Why would they…?).

It's bad enough that there are so many things that generate such questions, but what's worse is that rarely can one puzzle out a feasible answer. And why is that? Because in most cases thought was not applied in the first place, so trying to apply logic to figure it out is pointless. No logic trail even exists to follow back to the root.

Some personal case studies to illustrate my point:

• Chicken dishes in Beijing. These almost always consist of large portions of the bird (sometimes including heads and feet, almost always including the neck) simply hacked up and dumped in – bones and all. This makes it incredibly troublesome to eat, as you can’t just eat around the bones because the tiny bone pieces are imbedded inside the chunks of meat.
  Why would they do it that way, when de-boning before cooking seems so much easier and, dare I say, logical?
• Denial of truth even as it chews your leg off. Also known as "the 'expert' (who has no firsthand knowledge) said so, therefore it must be true." The following was told to us by a neighbor who had an actual water leak in the wall of her apartment: she called the on-site property management rep, who came to her apartment and said "our engineers told us there weren't any leaks, so it can't be a leak." At which point our neighbor took the rep's hand and touched it to the wet wall. The rep continued to deny the existence of the leak, though workers came later to fix the spot (which apparently continued to be something other than a leak).
  Why would they deny it? It's wet, it's leaking – it's a leak! Just acknowledge it and fix it!
• Power to the (wrong) people. Our on-site property management rep has no power. She is the one we interact with directly when there is a problem, yet she has no actual power. She has to clear everything with her boss first, who probably has to clear it with his boss, and so on, with the actual decisions made by someone who is probably sitting in an office somewhere in Hong Kong and has never set foot in our building. (Okay, that may be an exaggeration, but truly the layers of resistance we meet for even the simplest of tasks are astounding.)
  Why would they put someone into such a position yet give them no authority to make sure things get done?
• Not wanting money. Taxi drivers will often refuse to take you somewhere. The most common reason I've heard is "it's too close" – which makes absolutely no sense because the meter automatically starts at a minimum 10RMB fare, meaning several short trips would be more lucrative than one long one. And it's not like the places we want to go are in the middle of nowhere; these taxis could get another customer in under a minute at our intended destinations.
  Why would they refuse a fare? They can't tolerate a couple of foreigners (who speak passable Chinese, by the way) for a few minutes?
• Inside-out light switches. In many Chinese apartments, the light switches can be found outside the bathroom doors, yet inside the closets. So the lights can be switched off from the outside while you're using the facilities, or you can fumble around in a dark closet before getting the light on (the switch is also usually placed on the hinge side of the door so you have to actually go in, close the door so you're in total darkness, and then have access to the switch).
  Why would they design it that way? It's like the opposite of convenience.
• Housekeeping, Bizarro World style. By that, I mean that our ayi's natural instincts are nearly directly opposite our own. And this is the second ayi we've had. Dusting furniture with water (despite being shown and instructed to use the Pledge polish). "Dragging" the mop around the floor, one direction only (not scrubbing or even any kind of back-and-forth motion). Unbuttoning ALL the buttons on my shirts after ironing, and buttoning/zipping up ALL of my pants/shorts – forcing me to unzip/unbutton just to put on the lower half, and re-button all the sleeves for the upper half. Every time.
  Why would she do that? I don’t need to be slowed down any more than I already am in the morning.
• Horseshoes and hand grenades. The underlying principle here seems to be "close" – but not quite there. Construction, manufacture, installation, cleaning – and more. It's not actually good, but "close enough" in their minds. And they wonder why we complain when the "good enough" floor boards slip and leave big gaps, or when they hang art off-center (close, but not quite) and leave huge holes in the wall because they had to drill into their "good enough" cement walls. They seem to shoot for an illusion of quality, rather than actual quality. I'm sure that's because the illusion is cheaper than the reality – they only do as much as they can pass off, but unfortunately the majority of the people then believe that the illusion is true quality, and then that false level of quality becomes the standard.
  Why would they do that? Stuff disintegrates so quickly here, and then it just gets patched up with a quick/easy fix until it degrades far enough to be complete trash. If they started with slightly better quality work/materials in the first place, things would work better and last longer.

Anyway, don't just take my word for it. Come visit and experience the "wonder" yourself!