Grace's Guitar/Joann's Small Victory

By Joann

Grace has been asking for a year to buy a guitar so she can teach herself to play. We were told that we could get more for our money if we waited and bought one in China. We have found that to be true! Jim brought Grace out to look at several stores and she had a pretty good idea of what she wanted.

Today, she and I decided we would take on the challenge of buying one--without Dad's language skills or our driver. Unfortunately, we woke up to gale force winds and rain, so walking the 20 minutes or more to the guitar store would be a challenge. Hmmmmmm, what to do? Jim left the address for the store before he left for work and I decided she and I could communicate well enough with a taxi driver and a map. With the help of the hotel doormen (they all got very interested in helping us on our mission!), we got in the taxi and were on our way--hopefully to the right place.

We made it to the store--yay! One employee (and one customer) spoke alittle English and Grace made her choice. They wrapped the guitar up so it wouldn't get wet and we headed out the door to go find another taxi and try to "gesture" our way back to the hotel--I had a map with the hotel's address in Chinese characters, which helped. Off we went again and when we got close to the hotel, the taxi driver said something, presumably that our destination was up ahead. I grunted back in agreement, hoping we were on the same track!

Relief. He drove us up to the hotel entrance and the doormen nodded and smiled, seeing that we had accomplished our mission. One small victory in cultural adaptation.