Chicken Talking to Duck （雞同鴨講）

Sometimes, almost always, the below kind of conversation is funny, yes surreal. But not when I’ve spent all day on a bus full of people with, shall we say a relaxed relationship with personal hygiene followed by a death-drive through the night with a driver who kept his eyes everywhere but on the road and his hands only occasionally upon the wheel, followed by being turned away from six or seven hotels “for my own safety” only to end up at the most expensive place in town at 4am.

“Yawn yawn.”
“You have to let me stay here!”
“I’m not sure …”
“I’m a HK compatriot! Look!” (produce HK ID card)
“It’s different from ours.”
“Well of course, it’s a HK ID card!”
“Er…”
“OK, OK. Passport.”

Much humming and hawing.

“This is an international hotel!”
“Yes. Do you want one or two beds?” I’m clearly only one person, if that.
“It doesn’t MATT … OK, one.”
“We only have rooms with two beds.”
“So why do you ask?” All right, so it’s 4 in the morning.

“I can only give you back your passport tomorrow.”
“You mean today?”
“No, tomorrow.”
“But I’m leaving later today!”
“Yes, tomorrow.”
“But it’s already tomorrow. It’s 04:10!”
“No, today is the 29th. Tomorrow is the 30th.”
“It’s past midnight so already the 30th?”
“No, we work on a 24 hour basis.”
“So when can I get my passport?”
“9.30.”
“You mean in five hours?”
“Yes.”

Ask the right question, ask the right question … But I shouldn’t be surprised, or surrealed out. This is the province where, when some locals fight with the real locals (Chinese) in July, they close down all means of communcation until October, and where, when you walk into the main post office in the provincial capital to buy a stamp for Hong Kong at 2:45, you’re told to come back at 3:30 because the person in charge of international stamps is having lunch.
60 years of communism has made them thus.