A Taiwan Repairman

It is pretty standard in Taiwan that if something breaks, they can and will fix it instead of automatically replacing it. Scooters that would have been discarded years ago in other countries are still alive and, for the most part, running here. Chairs that are so broken they make odd popping and screeching noises when sat upon, are glued up and screwed back together to last another few months. It is impressive in a "reduce, reuses, recycle" sort of way, but very frustrating when you just want things to work sometimes.

Our couch at our apartment is a classic example of this. It started breaking at the beginning of the year and got progressively worse with each dinner party (people don't look where they are sitting when they have a full plate of enchiladas apparently) and finally got to a point where we couldn't use it anymore. I was pretty sure that it was ready for the dump, but when we called our landlord (our apartment is furnished by her) she told us she would send over a repairman. Fine, just fix it then; we just wanted a useable couch.

Little did we know how funny and productive it would be to have a Taiwanese repairman come to our apartment! I was home alone at the scheduled time and he managed to call our apartment phone which has NEVER rang before. I answered it with the classic Taiwan phone greeting "Wei" (pronounced "way") and a man on the other end started speaking in Chinese. I thought it was maybe the front door guard asking if I had a repairman coming, needing him checked in, so I just said "yes" in Chinese, but he kept speaking. I didn't know what to do at this point, so I just kept saying "what?" in Chinese. Eventually, I realized he couldn't get up the elevator because we need to scan our cards every time we go up or down for security purposes. So I went down and met him at the door. I had no idea what Asian man it would be, but I was pretty easy to spot being the only white woman in the lobby so he jumped right out at me and pointed to his hammer and other tools. Those were good enough credentials for me, so we went back up to the 10th floor.

After about 30 minutes of taking a hammer to our couch (it was really broken), I could tell he had given up hope. Total shocker! I thought he would have whipped out the tape and staple gun and sort of patch it back together before giving up like that, but sure enough he called our landlord and told her we needed a new one. What?! A new couch?! How could this be?!?! Then he kept saying something to us about 7, but we couldn't understand what he meant by that.

To our total shock, we got a knock on our door at 7 p.m. sharp. It wasn't a new couch, but it was the son-in-law of our landlady there to take the measurements for a new couch. This is going to be awesome! He said it is going to be delivered on maybe Wednesday of this week and we will have a new couch in our apartment! It will be like we're back in the States again- something breaks and you just get a new one. I don't think we'll know what to do with ourselves when it is delivered... a new couch, a new couch. Wow. This is going to be cool: I'll post a picture when it comes!