The "Cleaning"

A guy came by yesterday to clean up the mess under the sink.  Actually three guys came by, but two of them were “supervising”.  It was pretty much a joke.  The guy had no actual cleaning agents.  He came with two buckets, a scraper thingy, and a towel.  He scooped up the gunk with the scraper and dumped it in the smaller bucket, and then he wiped up the excess with the towel.  The second bucket he filled with water to rinse off the scraper.  He also dunked the towel in that same water and used it to wipe up the floor.  So the floor is now dirtier than it was before.  The one thing he did do that I liked was he cleaned under and behind the fridge.  So there are no more dead cockroach bodies lingering back there.

This whole thing brought to light a couple of cultural differences that I thought were interesting.  First of all, cleaning with no soap or disinfectant or any kind!  Our housekeeper at the old apartment also used to wash our dishes without using soap.  Very strange.  Also, when the various people entered our apartment, they all took off their shoes.  If we were a normal Chinese family, we would have slippers for them to wear inside.  But the only slippers we have, we keep in the kitchen because the first time we sprayed the cockroaches, Adam sprayed all over the floor and I was afraid of tracking the insecticide all over the apartment and poisoning Smudgie.  Anyways, the first guy was the cleaning guy, and at first he came armed with only a mop.  So when he saw what he needed to do, he left and came back with different supplies and he brought his own slippers.  The second guy was supervisor #1.  When he came, he took his shoes off outside the door and left the door open.  He then tipped toed across the living room in his socks until he came to the slippers we had in the kitchen.  At first he just stood on top of them, and then he put them on.  I had to bring his shoes inside and close the door because the warm air was getting out.  Then supervisor #1 wore the slippers back to the door and put his shoes on.  Supervisor #2 came at that same moment and he took his shoes off outside the door, left the door open, and put the slippers on.  Again I had to bring his shoes in and close the door.  I just thought it was funny that they thought it was rude to walk inside our apartment without slippers, but leaving the door open was not rude at all.  The landlord did the same thing when she came to investigate the hot water situation.  She left the door open like it was no big deal.

Completely unrelated to that...

We went to Do & Me for dinner and they had a whale-shaped sign advertising their new seafood items:

Here’s a close-up of this fish sandwich with shrimp inside of it:

Hilarious.