I’ve been a bit under the weather this weekend, fighting a cold, so I stayed at home Friday night. At about 12:30AM (e.g. Saturday 0030) I was getting ready for bed when the doorbell to my apartment rang. Of course I didn’t expect anybody over, so I gingerly looked through the view-hole of my door and didn’t see anybody in the small room that my apartment shares with my neighbor.
I did see somebody moving at the outside door (where the doorbell is) so I cracked my door open to see who it was. As I opened the door, a young twenty-something opened the outside door and started to walk in to my apartment. I asked her to stop in Chinese saying that I don’t know you (我不知道你!) and what did she want (你要什么?). She was being very friendly and it only took a moment for me to realize that she was a xiaojie (小姐). In very broken Chinese I told her that she had the wrong place but she was very insistent that she wanted to talk to me and come inside.
So after like a minute or so of a conversation that left both of us confused, she pulled out her mobile phone and started to see if she had the address right. Her phone had a message on it that had the same apartment number as mine but after some more arguing with her, I managed to convince her she was in wrong side of the building and pointed her in the right direction. She promptly left and walked through the double door that splits the the two sides and I’m sure was on her merry 小姐 way.