Kidnapped... in a good way?

So something I have discovered about living and traveling in foreign countries is the constant danger of the friendly kidnapping. This typically involves limited language skills on the part of both parties, an awkward sense of obligation, and some type of vehicle, but the defining characteristic is that there is no way out until your captors decide to release you. If you don't count outings with the host family (which I don't, but sometimes fall within the same bounds of awkward situations that you have absolutely no way out of) we had our first friendly kidnapping in China on Sunday.

It began with a general plan to go to Metro at some point this weekend: a Costco-like German-run box store rumored to carry such delicacies as cheddar cheese, real coffee and oven-like appliances. Saturday ended up being one of those days where it was difficult to get out of the house. We slept in, cleaned, organized, and procrastinated in the apartment, and finally only ended up out of the house in the evening to forage for food. So Metro had to happen on Sunday. Another slow-ish day, but we were both in showering/dressing mode by about 10:30 am. At that point, as I was still running around the house in my underwear (Richy still showering), the phone rang. Earlier this week I had received a call from the same number, which ended up in fact being my first phone conversation in Chinese. At that time, I surmised that the woman on the other end of the phone was a friend of my Jiejie in Chengdu, who had been summoned to help us out with settling into Chongqing. I told her that I had to work during the week and that I didn't need anything, and she said she'd call back on Friday. Apparently she was busy on Friday and decided to call me back on Sunday at 10:30 am. Again she only spoke in Mandarin, thankfully slow, thankfully basic. I told her we planned to go to Metro (called Mai-de-long in Chinese) she then asked me "shenme shi hou" (when?) I told her we planned to leave the house around 11:00am and return at around 3:00pm. She said she wanted to take us out to eat. I said okay. She asked me my address. I told her my address. I assumed we were going to meet at or after 3:00pm. The conversation ended with a cheery "Zai Jian" (see you later) on both sides. I was smug, feeling like I just had my second successful phone conversation in Chinese. Yay!

Two minutes later, while I was still in a state of undress, the phone rang again. She said she was at the end of my street and what building did I live in? What? "Shen zai ma" (right now)? Oh crap. My smugness was immediately replaced with panic. I called to Richy (in the shower) that we were having a change of plans, that I misunderstood and that she was coming to the apartment right now. I threw on my clothes and ran down to the street to find her (I don't have the language skills, even in English to explain where the entrance to my building is). I looked down the street and found a frantic-looking Chinese woman in a purple dress clutching a cell phone just as mine rang. I followed her, answered the phone and sure enough it was her. I invited her up to the apartment, knowing that she might be horrified by the mess, but thinking that I didn't really want to organize ourselves on the street. Richy was still in the shower after all. Up in the apartment, she kept making phone calls, saying something about meeting with some friends who spoke English, and we waited for Richy to dry and dress.

When Richy was ready we went back down to the street and got into her car (the point at which we released control and became kidnapped), a red Ford Focus bedecked on the interior with all manner of Hello Kitty and Minnie Mouse paraphernalia. We assumed she must have a child (which we later discovered not to be the case). She whisked us off to Yang Jia Ping, which is the nearby entertainment district and general mall-like area where we met up with a couple at a small clothing boutique trying clothes on their adorable, pigtailed, three year old little girl. Indeed, one of them spoke English and we quickly surmised that he had just spent a month living with a host family near Seattle. What a coincidence! It was nice, if not a little bizarre, to be suddenly standing there chatting in totally fluent English with someone who knew about our part of the world. Once the outfits were picked out and purchased, he asked us if we would like to have hotpot for lunch. In honesty, hot pot is a little hard on the guts and we had never tried it for lunch before. We cautiously agreed. They took us to a fancy hotpot place in the nearby Paradise Walk mall and were relieved to find individual hotpot burners for each diner. This meant that if anyone ordered duck blood, pig brain, cow stomach, duck intestine, or any other such internal organs we could have a better chance of avoiding it. We even got to tone down the spice in our individual pots in anticipation of not knowing when we would next have unlimited toilet time.

The hotpot was delicious, with a full bar of condiments and pleasant company to share the meal with. I felt like we had made some new, solid friends who were not affiliated in any way with our work at the university. We exchanged phone numbers and they invited us to their house in October when relatives from America would be visiting them. Next, my thoughts turned back to Metro - would we still be going there? It hadn't been mentioned since our first phone conversation. It was already past 2:00pm. We didn't know what to do other than follow Jiejie's friend (her name is Lei Lu) back to her car. We asked her where she lived, trying to politely surmise where we were going. She told us that she lived right by the Metro and that she would be taking us there. I kind of hoped she would just drop us off so we wouldn't have to expose her to our slow and tedious methods of shopping. Of course she considered it her responsibility to escort us, and to try to make our shopping experience as efficient as possible. She asked us what items we were looking for, and although we mostly wanted to browse in awe at all the occidental goods, she didn't seem to have the patience for it and we didn't want to be ungracious for the lunch (she paid for hotpot) and the ride in her car (especially since we were hoping to bring home a toaster oven with us).

We ended up with cheese, coffee, a toaster oven and a wi-fi router. She seemed dismayed at the wi-fi router for some reason that we could not translate and refused to let us buy it. Outside the store, after a heated telephone conversation with someone that featured the word "wi-fi" several times, she took Richy back into the store and let him buy it after all. Finally she took us home - we thanked her profusely and told her she was a "hen hao ren" (very good person). She told us that we were her friends and that we should call her anytime.  We ended up back in our apartment at 3:30pm, feeling kind of dazed and wondering how we had the good fortune to experience such a lovely kidnapping.

- Katie