Internet, the one object we use daily and take for granted. In the 21st century home internet is vital for staying connected with loved ones, keeping your business going, finding recipes, learning, writing a blog and more. It took over one month for us to get internet in our new apartment in Qingdao, China.
It was a frustrating adventure and at points I thought internet in our home wasn’t a possibility. Premise: Our caretaker of our survival and transition into the Chinese culture with Kings English for Kids in Qingdao does not speak English. To communicate with her we either need to text or speak through a teacher assistant. It’s a game of telephone. I will try to explain this process to the best of my un-savy internet lingo.
Week 1 and 2:
For starters, we didn’t have the “internet connection” guy come until after the Chinese Moon Cake Holiday week. Through poor communication he came a week after the holiday. It was this first visit that I got really excited because we hadn’t had internet for over two weeks. My heart sank when he left. It was like he snatched a perfect cookie from my hands.
The “Internet connection” guy.
Week 3:
The second time, two other men showed up.In my eyes they did the same thing that the other “internet connection” guy did. They unscrewed all the white outlets and let the drywall remnants cascade to a pile of dust all of the floors. From the looks of it the two men were having trouble. I was fascinated that at one point one of the men after a half an hour lit a cirgarette outside our front door in the hallway. He filled the halls like a cigar lounge. The “internet connection” guy later showed up.
It was through charades I learned he wanted to drill a hole above the door and have the grey internet cable vine into our living room. My first thought, “What does this guy think our home is, a monkey cage?” I tried to call a person from Kings English to translate what he was saying but no one answered and the internet guy couldn’t or wouldn’t wait. It was at this time that I felt like the man took a huge tub of cookie dough batter that was gifted to me away. =( I looked around my home and all I saw were traces of their whereabouts, footprints from Chinese dust.
Moments after they left Denny thought “This apartment is new, there has to be an internet connection.” He made a quest, and found an internet connection doodad behind the couch. Ahhhha! Why couldn’t these men find it? We spent a few hours trying to convince our caretaker that the internet people didn’t see this outlet. I even went a step into involving c0-workers and neighbors in the building to translate. We finally came to the conclusion that all the internet wires were dead and that the landowner did not want the monkey vine hung in the apartment.
Week 4:
Three strange men came to our apartment; I’m guessing they are the apartment building owners.We learned from their visit that the “wiring” guy lives 5 hours away in Jinan and that he couldn’t come for a week.
A few days pass and the “wiring” guy shows up. The next day the same internet guy comes. He must feel like our flat is another home away from home!!! There are more complications. He basically wants to do a slack job and he loosely wires the cable from our bedroom to the living room. He tells us he doesn’t know how to use the TPLink for getting wifi. At this point internet only works if we hook the cable to our computer but our Macbook Air’s don’t have that ability. Denny whispers to me at this point, don’t worry about the wire, I can fix it tonight or tomorrow. I’m blessed with an engineer-construction mind of a husband.
Denny had to go to work. Sophia and Cathy kindly spend hours trying to figure out how to set up the TPLink. When Denny got home that night he figured out how to set the TPLink and was able to do a business call the following morning. From all the time I spent trying to get internet I would say it adds to about an average work week of 40 hours.
Hallelujah, we have internet and I won’t take it for granted. Away from the USA and dealing with the Chinese firewall and VPN of an internet I am reminded how fortunate I am when the internet works smoothly.
.jpg)
