Chinese Alarm Clock, Part 1

One week in China… CLANGCLANGLANGACLANG!! Knocking on the metal door like a cop with a warrant. My heart starts skipping and I start wondering what we could have done (some offhand comment taken as dissent?) to provoke this incessant rapping on our door at 10:00 in the morning. CLANGACLANCLANGACLANG!!! growing louder each time and I jump and run to the door, putting my eye up to the hole – but I don’t see anyone in the stairwell. Empty. So I open it up and there is someone there – a tiny Chinese woman, old, who immediately rattles off something and starts pointing into the apartment. I shrug, shake, look as confused as I can, and let her in. She follows her own outstretched hand, which leads like a dowsing rod into the laundry/kitchen/bathroom area. “Sorry,” I say, “We don’t speak Chinese.” She shakes her head. Now we play charades. She points to the ceiling. She points to the floor. She points to her head. Aha! It seems that water is dripping from our floor into her apartment below (just minutes before I had finished mopping up a puddle that had leaked from the washing machine). But still she is shouting, screeching really, and in Chinese – maybe if she talks loud enough she’ll break the language barrier…

"Related" posts:

1. Chinese Alarm Clock, Part 2
2. Chinese Alarm Clock, Part 3
3. Chinese Alarm Clock: Epilogue