I am very happy to be reporting my desk in my apartment on this Monday morning because I'm on HOLIDAY! We have a week off of school due to the Chinese National Holiday. Also called: Golden Week.
"Three days of paid holiday are given, and the surrounding weekends are re-arranged so that workers in Chinese companies always have seven continuous days of holiday. These national holidays were first started by the government for the PRC's National Day in 1999 and are primarily intended to help expand the domestic tourism market and improve the national standard of living, as well as allowing people to make long-distance family visits. The Golden Weeks are consequently periods of greatly heightened travel activity." Wikipedia
So what does this mean? In short, don't go running on Sunday morning. I knew there was a holiday, and I knew Anwer had his Chinese classes on Sunday. Knowing these things, I still neglected the thought that other people might also be working. I wasn't. I headed out on my Sunday morning run and mistakenly decided to go a new direction to help find some new things. Terrible idea. I ended up running into the hoards of people who were in fact still working or heading to work.
Then I went and got my hair done at a foreigner-approved hair salon. I had previously heard of the salon from other people at school. It also had some publicity on the Suzhou Expat Facebook group. I felt further assured when four other foreigners showed up in the salon while I was there. Why do I need so much foreigner assurance?? Well, I've experienced plenty of bad and mediocre hair cuts in India to know that you can't just trust anyone with scissors. I can remember vividly a traumatic experience in New Delhi where I felt like crying. Once a person screws up your hair, how do you tell them they suck but ensure they don't do further damage? It's a fine line.
I certainly didn't want to end up in some place where no one spoke English, and they never learned the colors and thought brown meant pink. Nope. Nobody wants that.
"Three days of paid holiday are given, and the surrounding weekends are re-arranged so that workers in Chinese companies always have seven continuous days of holiday. These national holidays were first started by the government for the PRC's National Day in 1999 and are primarily intended to help expand the domestic tourism market and improve the national standard of living, as well as allowing people to make long-distance family visits. The Golden Weeks are consequently periods of greatly heightened travel activity." Wikipedia
So what does this mean? In short, don't go running on Sunday morning. I knew there was a holiday, and I knew Anwer had his Chinese classes on Sunday. Knowing these things, I still neglected the thought that other people might also be working. I wasn't. I headed out on my Sunday morning run and mistakenly decided to go a new direction to help find some new things. Terrible idea. I ended up running into the hoards of people who were in fact still working or heading to work.
Then I went and got my hair done at a foreigner-approved hair salon. I had previously heard of the salon from other people at school. It also had some publicity on the Suzhou Expat Facebook group. I felt further assured when four other foreigners showed up in the salon while I was there. Why do I need so much foreigner assurance?? Well, I've experienced plenty of bad and mediocre hair cuts in India to know that you can't just trust anyone with scissors. I can remember vividly a traumatic experience in New Delhi where I felt like crying. Once a person screws up your hair, how do you tell them they suck but ensure they don't do further damage? It's a fine line.
I certainly didn't want to end up in some place where no one spoke English, and they never learned the colors and thought brown meant pink. Nope. Nobody wants that.
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