Problem solving, Chinese style

In short, problems do not get solved. Case in point are my 2 Chinese flatmates, who have completely fallen out and cannot be in the same room together, which is unfortunate because they share a room. I think one of them has actually gone crazy. Let me explain...

I wondered why one of them had taken to sleeping on the sofa. It turns out they have had lots of little problems, and failing to deal with them, they turned into big problems, which all ended with death threats and the like. Things like the volume on FanQian's computer, XiaoMing turning off the fridge, XiaoMing recently having more foreign friends that FanQian, they just ballooned. FanQian was so scared he was nearly crying last week, and locked the door at night. XiaoMing has for the time moved out to God knows where, probably the stairwell where he likes to read.

Maybe I sound a bit patronising, but it's difficult not to. The stupidity displayed by these 2 is really something, I'm still laughing about it with Clemens (German flatmates). Their situation here is something that most of their classmates would give their right arm for - living with pretty easy-going, English speaking foreigners, way more freedom than in the dorms on campus, etc, etc. But they've messed it up royaly, because of a complete inability to even confront the smallest problem.

So this Sunday, us 4 get together to try and find out a) why is there a problem and b) what to do about it, because, after all, all 4 of us want to stay where we are. There were in fact about 12 people in the room, their friends decided to come along. This is so Chinese - when ever anything of interest happens, there's always plenty of people around to look or join in. There's a fountain display thing in a park round the corner, and its pretty average, but everyday a few thousand people turn up to watch it.

So we've got all these 20 year old male students sitting round with no shirts on (it wasn't as gay as it sounds). XiaoMing insisted on sitting on the floor (and he wonders why no-one respects him). All I wanted to know was 'what is the problem'. You'd think this was in easy question, but they are just so unwilling to face facts, I'm still not entirely clear. One guy even threatened to start a fight, which was hilarious, because he, like the rest of them, was weedy as anything. XiaoMing and FanQian both can't even open their own pineapple beer. After an hour, with almost zero progress, I just left because it was a waste of time.

So it looks like when they're both back from the summer holiday, XiaoMing will be leaving. He has actually gone crazy, I think. Recently he's been saying some really weird things - 'I am a superstar', 'I often tell lies to puzzle people', this having 5 minutes before telling me how honest he is. Some of stuff he comes out with and does, I just cannot understand this guy at all.

As always, never easy, always interesting.