Buzzer No Work

While we were away on summer home leave, we've had some things break around our Shanghai house. So now that I'm back, I've got a short list of things that need to be fixed. One of them is the house buzzer at our garden gate, which poses a big problem. Because when the workers come to fix things, they buzz the non-working buzzer and then leave, because I don't answer... because I don't know they are there. So I call the management office and tell them to come back and they say, "You no home," to which I reply, "I am home, my buzzer no work. If you fix it then you will see I am home". It then takes another week for me to get them to come back. And the vicious cycle continues...

Well, now I taped a sign OVER the buzzer itself. But unfortunately I can't write Chinese characters. So I wrote: "BUZZER NO WORK. COME TO DOOR" with an arrow. I figured that even though the workers can't read it they will get the basic idea from the arrow and the fact that the sign covers the buzzer. So now I got them to my front door. But instead of knocking, they start yelling. I don't respond to yelling in Chinese because there is a lot of yelling around here already and I've learned to block out loud Chinese yelling.

Finally, I look out the window and sure enough they were calling to me. I showed them how to knock to get me to answer. Hopefully, they will knock the next time. Sigh... I hope it doesn't rain tomorrow and ruin my sign...

From the Back of a Van

One of our favorite things about living in China is being able to buy copy DVDs of newly released theater movies before they are even released on DVD in the U.S. Oftentimes, the descriptions on these copy DVDs are not proofread, just poorly translated by some guy who speaks a little English, we presume. Would it take that much time and effort to have an English translator do it correctly is always the question on everyone's mind here.

This DVD was even funnier to us, because not only is the description on the back poor Chinglish, but the visual on the front is "hilarious" (according to my husband). Angelina Jolie is not an actress in this movie, she is the writer-director. I hardly think she would approve of this ridiculous photo of herself looking like some kind of vixen. This is a war movie, not a porno flick. We are constantly amused and it never gets old!

The real one from the U.S.:

The cover of the copy DVD in China: