Snow White

As I learn Chinese I correct many mistakes in my notes . One relief has been to find correction fluid here in Beijing where I have come for a couple of nights. To run out of the invaluable liquid would have been a travesty. It is better for me to have a neat but incorrect notebook than correct but messy. Browsing a bookstore last night I came across the brand name Snow White and all seemed well in the universe. Beijing is certainly not the rest of China. Case in point would be it took two hours in Xingtai to find envelopes and a birthday card and white out may not have graced the city. Beijing will make a great host city for the Olympic Games. It is modern and the wide boulevards are a delight. The tiled sidewalks stretch for miles. Foreigners are aplenty when compared to Xingtai where after five weeks I have still to come across a foreigner outside of one arranged meeting. Here I am inconspicuous. Or so I thought. At the chinese hotel I took a shower in the morning. Only just under the water, I heard a knocking. I had all my possessions with me because the clerk on each floor keeps the only room key. Turns out showers are a no no in the morning and the eagle-eyed clerk had called the manager. He explained with gestures that water in a thermos is there for washing face etc. Oh dear. The true purpose of the basin I had peeed in the night before was revealed. I had some reason to justify my action but to hide my embarrassment I had to wait for the maid to be preoccuppied before covering my tracks with a quick emptying job at the washroom! Any more faux pas in store?