A few days back the ball and chain and myself took a trip to the big IT market area in Hai Dian, in the NW of Beijing. There are several big malls there, just stuffed full of IT and other goodies.
We went there to get her phone fixed (a small button had broken). So we went to our regular dealer and he said he could get the replacement part today. It would be about an hour apparently. Fair enough.
So we went and had a look around and came back at the prescribed time. The part wasn’t there, which didn’t surprise me much I admit. We asked how long and it was going to be another ’10 minutes’.
Twenty minutes later, I asked again, and it would be just ’10 minutes’.
I realized at this point that we were on ‘Chinese time’, by which when they say ’10 minutes’ they actually could mean 10 minutes, or (more likely) they could mean anywhere up to two hours.
Some time later we were told the part was there, so we went to another area for fixing. We arrived and were told it was still on the way, but would only be ’10 minutes’.
Sigh.
Tags: living in China, Only 10 minutes.
