Well, the power is back on.  I’ve been running around the house turning lights on and off obsessively just for fun.  We went without electricity for almost 42 hours.  It was nice to finally shave off my Amish beard and  Bob Marley dreads.  Have’t done one of these lists in a while, so I thought it might be a good time to revisit it. 

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You just might be living in Xining if…

• You hail a taxi cab and head for your home.  Half-way through the drive your driver pulls over, gets out of the vehicle and ushers a different person into the driver’s seat.  This new person takes over where his friend (?) left off and drives you the rest of the way to your destination.  I’m still not clear if that was a shift change or a bathroom break.  It was definitely a first…
• Against your wishes you witness an elderly lady performing what we Americans refer to as "the farmer blow" on a public sidewalk.  Before you get too scandalized by the lingo, a farmer blow is when a person closes off one of their nasal passages with a finger and "blows" out the contents of the adjacent nasal passage.  It’s quite disgusting actually.
• You are excited to discover a new "western" restaurant in your city.  It is a restaurant that serves pizza with the (not-so) appropriate name: Delifrance.  Upon arrival you get the "English" menu, a hand-written, tattered white sheet of paper with English menu items and prices listed.  Other than two kinds of pizza the only other food served there is popcorn (microwave) and various kinds of seeds.  Regardless of these foreboding signs, you are surprised that the pizza does not taste too bad regardless of the lack of tomato sauce and even with the extra chilli peppers added.
• You are warmed by a euphoric sense of joy when you come upon a convenience store that actually puts a few soft drinks in a cooler to keep it cold.
• You look forward to your weekly trip to the indoor swimming pool because it means you can take a shower with unlimited hot water.  (This takes on even greater relevance when you haven’t had a hot shower in a couple days…)
• You’re not surprised when you see people smoking in the locker room after a long, healthy swim.
• You’re not surprised by the requirement that everyone must wear a swimming cap in the public pool even though the pool only gets cleaned once a week anyway.  (Needless to say we go to the pool the day after cleaning day…)
• Your TV repairman calls you to ask you the best way to get to your house…by bus.
• The Chinese bank your American bank has a contractual partnering agreement with gets a new ATM machine installed up the street from you…but it still will not accept your ATM card.  (The good news is that if I use this ATM machine I won’t have to pay a bank charge, the bad news is I also won’t get any money out!)
• Half of the appliances you bought last year require repair.  Beautifully, the repairman comes out to your house to repair them and doesn’t charge you a cent (mao) for it…
• You are learning spoken Chinese from a naturalized Amdo Tibetan Kham Tibetan…and you’re quite happy with that arrangement.
• In a city of over a million people, you wind up in the same taxi cab with a guy who knows your Norwegian neighbor Tomas.  (But then again, Tomas, is a celebrity of great renown around here.)
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