It was a conundrum at first. One kept on pointing to the characters on her t-shirt -- as if my written Chinese were any better than my spoken. (It's not. I can say a few things in Mandarin -- hello, I'm sorry, I don't mean to be such a complete bother, and I can read a few things in Chinese -- the fire, water, and fermentation radicals (or roots) and from that I can construct alcohol and recognize words dealing with cooking. But none of that was getting me anywhere with these two.)
Ah-ha! I have a handler (some of us call him our personal assistant). His official title is "liason", but I prefer "handler". I called him up on my cellphone, and handed it over to the woman who appeared to be in charge. While she was talking to him, I noticed the word "census" written in English on her bag. (Pointing to that at first might have been handier, but I think we were all a bit surprised by the encounter. There are very, very few Westerners living in this part of town.)
He sorted it out, and he told me he'd explain it tomorrow. She gave me a piece of a paper and I'll give that to him and then something will happen. Or not. But it will all be in Chinese.
Of course, I'm in the process of becoming an official resident (it's a 2-4 week process). All I can say is that I'm glad that my company is a stickler for details and I AM in the process of becoming an official resident.
And I'm very glad for my Handler.
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