After the meeting with Dr. Zhang, I head home. I inform Hong about the lunch we had at the restaurant with my business friends. I say to her how my friends laughed at me because I usually use Skye and emails to communicate. They accused me of being “out-dated and backward”, in a modern world where people use WeChat or WhatsApp. Hong has both on her phone, the Chinese WeChat, and the Western WhatsApp.
“The problem with you is that you are always too busy to take care of yourself, do you know that many companies now cannot do business without WhatsApp?”, she asks.
Without dragging the topic farther, I promise, I will change into a modern man.
Hong tells the driver about the small accident where she crashed into a dog, that escaped with no injuries, and how the car got a small dent. The driver advises her to contact our insurance company, to cater for that minor damage because the leasing company would not pay after all. We have to wait until the end of the week and initiate a accident which will be reported to the police.
In the West, according to our calendar, the week starts on Sunday.
In China, it is different, because to them the days of the week are counted from Monday to Saturday. So, Monday is day 1, Tuesday is day 2, and so on. In China, Sunday has two names, Sunny Day, and Sky Day. Travelling is learning. Whenever and wherever you travel, will undoubtedly learn about many new things.
Today is a working day because it automatically compensates for the additional holidays that we took during the New Year. Even though this is the case, many people are not yet fully back to work, which is common during such periods. I have to work hard to get the backlog out of the way because today I want to go home earlier than usual.
When I arrive home, Hong is in the shower braving the cold water; I become frustrated when I think about the meaning of saving, that makes a person have a cold bath, in this weather! I feel pity for Hong. While we are having dinner, Hong told me that she did not have lunch, because there was plenty of work to do.
I look at her, thinking about the proverbial saying, "all work and no play, made Jack a dull boy".
"Bytheway there is no drinking water left", she adds, while gulping a glass of water. I nod signalling that I got it. After dinner, I quickly ran to the supermarket to buy a few bottles of water.
After coming back from the supermarket, I sat down on the sofa and watched the movie "Bourne Identity". I am a fun of films because they take the stress off me, after a busy day at work. When watching the movie, I realise what the American secret service has been doing all the time; the Chinese had done it much earlier if not longer. I remember that twenty years ago when I first came to China, all cars and hotel room would be bugged, and telephone conversations intercepted. All accommodation employees, all drivers to mention a few, were "undercover agents". That time the Chinese were more suspicious of Western foreigners than today.
Have they completely abandoned their secretive spying missions, given up, or are doing it even more than before? I have no answer for that.
It was getting cold. I decide to pour the rest of my Chinese rice wine in a saucepan and warm it a little bit. Since this wine is yellow, it is also called "Yellow Wine" in China. You can also get rice wine in Japan. It is called Sake, and in Korea, they call it Magoli, but the difference is that amongst other countries, the wine is colourless, not yellow as it is the case in China.
After warming the wine, I grabbed a glass, poured it in and headed for my private office on the third floor of our house. Before I could even warm my seat, Hong came running in the office shouting.
"The whole house is smelling of yellow wine, have you vomited?" she asked, blowing her nose with her right palm.
Still holding the glass in m hand, I answered. "No, I just warmed it because it was too cold".
"Ya right, you just warmed it because it was too cold, do you then have to suck the whole bottle?" she interjected before I even finished the sentence.
"Calm down Hong, it is not a bottle; it is only a glass" I answered, trying to calm her moods down.
"Do you know what is going to happen now?" she asked.
"No, I don't" I answered back.
"Your sperm is now going to get drunk; then it will start swimming aimlessly drunk without hitting the target, this is why children are born drunk from drunkard fathers like you," she said dejectedly.
Hong is a woman who always has something to say about everything. When it comes to having or not having children, Hong is a very fickle minded person. What does she want? Children or not? Is it because of the alcohol in the rice wine, or is it whatever she said was smelling in the house, what makes her so upset? I cannot tell. Whatever the reason could be for her mood swings, I think there is more alcohol in Brandy that than in a rice wine.
While still thinking about Hong’s behaviour, she calls me to go to her office, one floor down. My heart pumps rapidly, thinking about what she was going to complain about next. I am wrong; it is entirely about a different topic. It is about a property for sale in Taicang, very close to our neighbourhood. Like in Germany, assets whose owner become insolvent, are advertised and sold by the banks to recover part of their money, or the whole of it sometimes charging interest on them. I browse through the advert and tell her that the property is too expensive. The court and the bank want to make more money, on top of what they are supposed to. Hong is quick to add before I could even finish the sentence that from her experience, the price in the advert is negotiable. I agree and propose to go and visit the property.
I am astounded to learn that the down payment as the deposit was a whooping 300,000 RMB, the equivalent of 40,500 euros of the then exchange rate. I was, however, not too much in agreement with such craftily designed adverts only meant to lure people into spending. I showed Hong part of the advert reading as follows in small print, “getting your money back later”. I warn that paying the money is one thing and getting it back as quickly as the writing seems to suggest was another thing. If those banks and other financial institutions got the money, they would twist languages using all technical words to protect their side. Hong agreed.
“You are right; it is like giving a piece of meat to a dog and expect it to return to you easily”, she says.
It is a snowy Sunday morning; Hong is still sleeping. So, I have to go jogging alone. I call my driver to go to the nearest police station, to record a statement about the accident that Hong was involved in with a dog. That way, she could go to the insurance company to fill a claim form. The driver does exactly that. I later give him a gift to thank him. That gift had been given to me by my bank two days ago, thanking me for being a loyal customer.
Everything is running smoothly. I clean up my office, sort out the paperwork and shred the ones that I did not need. Hong is busy on her laptop sitting opposite me. She always reminds me of thoroughly checking every piece of paper before I shred them. I wondered! One time she is complaining about savings, another time about stuffing the house with smelly wines, and now I should be careful with what I do and do not shred. Is this not going too far, is she not one of those typical control freaks? I asked myself.
After dinner, I grab a phone and call Daniel in Germany, and Hong calls her mother. We go to bed early. My water bottle is already full to comfort me in bed since it is cold.
On Wednesday, Hong had to travel to Suzhou to attend a monthly DUSA meeting, to meet acquaintances and her work colleagues, and to exchange news and ideas. DUSA is European Business Association, founded twelve years ago by many Germany companies to facilitate the initiation of business in China through information, workshops, and training courses for small and medium-sized German companies.
In addition to her work at the university, Hong is a freelance lawyer in her law firm in Suzhou. One of the benefits is her membership card that allows her free parking, of which she takes advantage. Later, that day, I take a flight from Shanghai Hongqiao Inland Airport, to visit