Frustration

Going abroad is just as exciting as it can be difficult. Because I thought of this before I went to China, I thought it would be a good idea to read some things about Chinese culture and about common difficulties Westerners encounter when they go to China. I’m very glad that I did these readings and happily enough I also studied a bit of Chinese before I came here. Of course the real experience is very different from reading about possible difficulties, but things like, last minute changes in my work schedule are easier to accept because I’m already counting on things like this to happen. And it’s good to know that in certain touristic places in Beijing, there are people who will try to get money out of you in an unpleasant way. These infamous teagirls and art students don’t exist in Wuhu though.

So far my stay in China has been relatively easy and so far I haven’t experienced any major difficulties. Which is partly thanks to some good preparation and probably for a greater deal thanks to some luck. This said there is just one thing which simply frustrates me here and which was not mentioned anywhere. I’ll probably be the first to write about this small problem with live in Wuhu. I’m not exactly sure if this is a problem I only have with Wuhu or with China in general.

So what is it? Well as you know one of my hobbies is football and I’m quite a big supporter of the Football club Ajax. In March they still played in the Eufa cup and sometimes it wasn’t that easy to get up in the middle of the night to watch the match in bad quality on my computer. But on the other hand it was great that I could watch the match live all the way in China. So although I did encounter a small amount of homesickness during some matches this is not which leads to my frustration. No, but you have to understand that in Holland there is another footballclub which is the big rival of Ajax, and this rival manages to frustrate me more in Wuhu than it did in Amsterdam…

The first week I was in Wuhu I walked past a Kappa store. Which is not so strange because there are a lot of shops from the big branches like Adidas, Nike, Kappa and so on. However what was strange, was that when I walked past this shop, I looked in the window and was shocked. I use the word shocked to indicate that I was more than surprised and to add some negative feeling. (Because in China there are more than enough surprises.) At first I couldn’t believe my eyes, but in the window I saw a Kappa sporting jacket. Ok this still makes sense, it was a Kappa store after all. But, wait… on the jacket there was a certain logo… of a certain Dutch football club… feyenoord… How on earth could that happen to be in a shop in Wuhu? And how on earth could anyone ever think of selling the ugly thing? And finally would there actually be anyone that stupid to buy it???

In my first week in Wuhu I did not see these clothes and I almost forgot about it. Until I saw the first Chinese person wearing this jacket. It was weird, I felt some anger towards him, but I didn’t show it and tried to ignore him, although it did get me wondering if he had any idea of what he was wearing. At the moment I have seen several Chinese people wear this jacket and although this might sound as a minor thing, for me this is one of the biggest frustrations of live in Wuhu. A lot of things which I’m not used to and not too pleased with, I can accept because I’m a guest here and I can be glad that it’s different back home. But this is hard to accept for me, mainly because they really have no idea of what they are wearing… They really don’t have any clue, I asked two of them and they told me that they had no idea what it was.

So finally a small suggestion from me, please don’t buy anything from Kappa in the future. You can stop buying any products from puma as well from now one, cause in the near future, only a few months from now, this will be the new sponsor of that other club. Happily enough puma is not doing so good in China, at least not in Wuhu, even though Usain Bolt showed his golden puma shoes a lot longer than his race lasted at the Olympics. On the other side, I’m afraid that since Wuhu is lacking behind a bit, these kappa clothes that frustrate me will be sold long after I leave this place.

I just wish there where more Chinese wearing jackets like this, and actually knowing what they're wearing.