China Blog #10

One cool thing that happened to us was while we were at the dressmakers, Brynn noticed that her zipper was "blowing out"on her favorite pair of boots. We went back in and asked if the tailor could fix it. She said that she didn't do boots, but gave our translator directions where to find a cobbler just down the street. We followed or translator down the street, with me providing north, south, west directions (could you imagine living in a town for 4 years, and not knowing which way north is?) until we got to the little old man's "shop" in the alley, where he fixes shoes beside a little rolling toolbox. He was replacing a heel for a matronly looking lady when we popped by. When he looked at Brynn's shoe and saw what was wrong with it, he whipped out his channel lock pliers and messed with it a little, and it zipped right up! Fixed! I was taking pictures of him this whole time, and you could tell that he really liked that. When he gave it back, he told our interpreter that there was no charge; just when I am at my most cynical, some little dirty old Chinese guy does something really nice for free...