10-24-2019

 

This is something a little interesting that happened about two weeks ago.

There are no classes from 12:00pm - 2:30pm because that is reserved as a resting time. My major classes are all on the south campus, so I have to take a bus there every day. During the rest time, I could return to the north campus, but I think that's a hassle for several reasons. So on the days that I have afternoon classes, I stay on the south campus and have lunch there. After lunch, I usually go to my afternoon classroom and sit there until class begins, meaning I'm often very early.

On this particular day, I walked into the classroom to find a HUGE puddle of water on the floor, extending from this area near the front of the classroom all the way to the back. Come to find out, there was water leaking from the radiator (also, I'm embarrassed to admit I now have a better idea of how a radiator works...I didn't realize before that water was involved). I took a closer look, and it seemed like all I had to do to stop the flow was tighten the cap on the area where the water was coming from. Simple, right? 

No, because yours truly cannot handle even the most mundane tasks. The cap ends up falling off and now water is BLASTING out of the radiator (ok maybe a little exaggerated) and I'm thinking ohhhh crap...using one finger to cover the stream of water, I ungracefully bend over to pick up the cap and replace it, but now my hands are wet, there are some wet spots on my clothes, and my shoes are wet from fumbling around in the puddle. Because I am inept at fixing things, I decided to leave the classroom to find an 阿姨 (in this context I am referring to a custodian, but "a'yi" is a general term of address for women older than you) who could help me. I didn't know how to say radiator in Chinese (and I still don't...oops) so I used my Very Simple Chinese to give an explanation of the situation (basically the translation comes to "The thing next to the window is broken, there is water on the floor! I don't know how long it has been like this.").

And then I watched lamely as she screwed the cap back on without any further trouble. 

Then she mopped the water on the floor. 

On a related note, I don't know if this is because Hohhot is more dry than humid, but when I wash my hands after using the restroom at school (or rather, 'rinse', since the restrooms don't have soap :c) I feel like they dry rather quickly. Point being, I was a little concerned about the water in the classroom, especially given that the floor was still a little wet after being mopped (as it should be). But miraculously, the floor dried before my classmates trickled in, and the majority probably figured there was nothing out of the ordinary.

This all leaves me wondering...why was the cap unscrewed? WHO DID IT? And why did they leave the classroom?? Was it a student who did it by accident and they were embarrassed and fled the scene? Or perhaps it was an absent-minded maintenance worker? 

Let me know if you have any other ideas.