Murphy's Law, A Chinese Standard

Murphy's Law states that "What ever can go wrong, will go wrong". While an American adage coined mainly from hiking and mountaineering, it has never rang truer than in China. When here, expect that everything will go wrong, count on it, and maybe every now and then you'll be plesantly suprised. Things will be lost or stolen, people will get confused, you will be told one thing, then find out nothing is further from the truth. Everything in China is a negotiation, which means you will be given your lowest expectations first, and then it's on you to waste time and money trying to get something more suitable. While sometimes enjoyable and novel, the process of planning is exhausting.

Everything here is literally in flux, so a contract means jack squat, and a verbal contract is more of a general agreement about what each party hopes to get out of the deal, not neccessarily what will emerge. I'd like to point out that the language barrier is really not an issue. It's just that many Chinese people have no clue about what's going on here. That's understandable as the only thing constant here is change.

So for example, while writing this email it started dumping down rain. My almost dry underpants, hanging in the court yard are now getting their second wash. It wouldn't have been an issue, aside from the fact that our cabbie told us that today's weather would be better than the last (which was a blue sky day). Forgot my umbrella for that same reason. Thanks buddy, I think you're nickname will be Murphy.