Pudding and Chopsticks

I’ve learned that everything in China is pretty much the same. At every level the fundamental values are for the most part equal. So if you do business with a store face to face, the same problems your going to have if you do business online.

Bring in China’s Ebay. Taobao. A nice little getup full of hundred or thousands of little online store. In contrast to Ebay which was, maybe not anymore, full of individual sellers. Things here are cheap. Which is awesome. But that comes at a cost.

I started to get back into RC Vehicles. I always wanted a helicopter so I bought one. Of course I crashed it and need some parts. In my quest for parts I came across Taobao. I’d seen some hop ups on there and decided to trick the bad girl out with some carbon fiber and purple aluminum. Every kids dream.

I ordered a ton of junk from 4 different stores. If all came at different times. Everything went ok. But the last thing I ordered. The carbon fiber frame. The shipping guy came and I opened the box to peer inside. It was the correct item, however, I didn’t look any further. Big mistake.

Upon further inspection inside my cozy little apartment I noticed that a part was broken. Not good. I wasn’t happy. I waited over a week for this gem to arrive and now I have a broken part. I talked to my friend who is helping me. She stated that since I signed for it, I basically told the shipping company that everything was ok. We talked with the seller. I sent awesome photos. The seller tried to talk to the shipping company, at least that’s what he said. The shipping company said he signed so we are not going to do anything.

We were in the process of trying to get another part in replacement of the broken one when I opened the package. I noticed that all the pieces weren’t there. Odd. We contacted the seller again, but they said we signed with the shipping company. They’re reasoning, well, the shipping company broke one part and could of stolen another, since you signed you basically agreed that everything was there and not broke.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME.

Since I signed and didn’t count all 50 pieces through the plastic wrapping your telling me too bad. I can’t wrap my head around this. The seller is “contacting” the factory to find out why a part was missing.

My guess, this was used, stolen, or something. It’s been collecting dust for years, they dumped it off on me and hoped that I wouldn’t know my ass from my mouth. Since I signed that damn piece of paper, from the shipping company not the seller, they’re off the hook.

This brings me the the fact that it doesn’t matter where you buy things, online, in person, what have you. Some people are honest. Some will try to sell you used, broken, part missing things and hopes that you sign that slip from the shipping company. Because if you do you have no recourse.

All I can hope is that this seller gets me a new part that’s not broke and also the missing part. If not, well, I’m out a little money.

On another side note. Whenever you ask someone if they have something they will say yes. I don’t know if it’s a face thing. Maybe they want to have everything and make money, maybe they don’t want the embarresment of not having something. Yeah we got that, and then they take off for ten minutes to find it, or call they’re distributor to see if they can get it. I say this because half of the things I first wanted to order on Taobao, were there online, but when it came time to buy them, nope sorry we don’t have that. THEN DELETE YOUR EFFING LISTING YOU IDIOT. Nope can’t do that either. Oh the thought process sometimes.

Things work differently here for sure. Once someone has your money, come hell or high water, they will not give it back. EVER. This translates to all business here. A ten dollar part or a million dollar deal. Cover you bases before you pay.

And for goodness sake, check, count, inspect every damn part that’s inside the box the shipping company gives you. If anything is out of order, don’t sign.

Let me explain. Taxis most of the time are fine. But there are times that taxis really suck dirty gorilla fingers.

Yesterday I told taxi driver guy that I needed to go to a certain town/district. Ok cool. I also told him that I would tell him where to go. Mostly because I don’t want him to take a bunch of turns that driving up the fare and also because even if I tell him exactly where I need to go, he is not going to know where it is. It’s a small place and no one knows the name of the business. So off we went.

Now I have GPS in my phone. I have to say that it’s the raddest thing ever. One, I know where I am and two, I know where to go. I took a look at my map and concluded that the fastest way, the only way around this lake is to go to the right of it. I told him to take a right. He does. Next we need to take a left and get on the road that goes directly to where I need to go. I tell him, next street on the left, go left. What happens? The road turns into a expressway and to go left you have to be on the right and cloverleaf on.

We are on the left and can’t get back right. It doesn’t help that he didn’t prepare. So now we have to go way out of the way just to turn around because this damn road doesn’t have any exits. F.

So finally he figures it out. We turned around and took a right where we need to take a left in the first place.

Today I get the same guy. I tell him to go to the same place as yesterday. Off we go. You know the road that we need to take a left at. Well, he figures the exit out and we get on the on ramp but.. He splits off to the right and not the left.. I, at this point, can’t believe it. So I have to tell him it’s wrong and to turn an around. He argues for a sec, then turns around. Finally realizes that oh yeah now we are going the right way.

I don’t know if he was scared to ask me or what. Maybe.

Took some photographs yesterday at dinner. It was a holiday here in China.

I ate the entire dinner left handed with chopsticks. I’ve become bored with the right hand. Not a bad skill to have. I mean, you can surf the internet with the mouse in your right have and then eat awesome Chinese food with the left. It’s a win win.

I took some photos at a market tonight. I never knew this but, apparently Arnold Swartzenager loves his WR-306 Wireless Microphone System.

Nuff said.