Dian Fei

Yesterday from noon until approximately 5 p.m. (we're not quite sure because we were checking out new Christmas decor at Fu Mart) our apartment had no electricity. In several countries through out the world that's really common...and it might have seemed usual to us if just previous to the outage a lady hadn't shown up at our door. We received a knock at our door just after noon by a lady who apparently knew nothing else to say except, "Dian Fei!" repeatedly. We didn't have a clue what she was talking about until she stepped over to our breaker box, unlocked it, and shut off all our electricity. At this point we naturally assumed she shut off our electricity because we missed paying our bill this month. Before you go off on us and call us irresponsible let me explain how the "billing" system works over here (to the best of my knowledge.) We pay our phone bill between the 5th and the 12th of every month, the electricity bill between the 10th and 20th, gas bill is paid whenever the lady shows up at our door...which in the past is around 9 p.m. at night on a Sunday, heating is paid 4 months at a time and should have been turned on yesterday yet still we're without heat, and then there's water...well I really have no idea how we pay water. You can't pay them early, likewise you can't pay them late. (or I guess you can if they show up at your door and shut everything off) Well apparently we missed paying our electricity bill, maybe you can see why we might get confused though, and they showed up and shut it off. Instead of letting us pay her she made Brandon run down to the office and pay up at which point they told him that they'd promptly turn it back on within the next three days. Luckily we have a friend that knows all the bill paying words who informed them that we'd prefer it if they could turn it on a little sooner. So around 5 p.m. yesterday we returned to a home with electricity.