Several days ago, we got home after a short vacation.  We noticed a tiny leak in a tube beneath the sink.  It was as if the tube had been pricked with a pin. As Josh tried to close the hole, the tube burst free from the wall, and water poured all over the bathroom.  It was about ten o’clock in what looked like a very long night.

This is where it would have been helpful to speak fluent Chinese.  Since we are still very new learners, we can’t look up a plumber, and we couldn’t talk to one even if we got him on the phone. 

Josh tried to hold the tube in place while I called the director of our program.  There was no answer!  I told Josh I was going for help. I went into the stairwell and started knocking on doors.  I was terribly disappointed when no one answered, not even those cruel souls in apartment 402, even though I could tell they were watching TV.

I ambushed the nice man from room 301 when he left his apartment to let a friend in the building.  I refused to leave his living room until he called a plumber. I also reminded him that since his apartment was directly below ours, it was in his interest to help me. 

He called a few different numbers before he reached someone at University Housing who knew how to shut off the water in our apartment.  He gave us a reference number and told us to call again in the morning.  Finally, Josh could step away from the sink.

The next morning we called one of our Chinese colleagues, and she called the right office at the University.  A plumber arrived within a half an hour, and the emergency was over.