Only in China (Lightbulb Edition)

Late Friday afternoon, M and I returned from a trip to the Silk Market, where we had bought some shoes for me and boots for her. (Random tidbit: I hate wearing shoes, but I like to buy them. Having lived in Ann Arbor and now Beijing, though, I've gotten to wear the shoes I've bought much more often than when I lived in California.) We opened the door to our apartment and turned on the light. There was a bright flash, a snap, crackle, pop, and then glass shattered onto the floor in front of us. As you can guess, one of the lightbulbs had exploded. Oh, China.

All the power in our apartment was fried. Thankfully, the management of our place is helpful, so we called them to see if they could send someone up to look at what happened. We figured it was probably just a short and we could reset the fuses to restore power. But when your lightbulbs are exploding, it's worth having a "professional" take a look. While we waited for the maintenance guys to come, I swept up the bits up burnt broken glass. Eventually, the guys showed up and took a look around. They mumbled something about how it was just a short and flipped a few switches, which turned the power back on. They did offer to change our lightbulbs for 5rmb once we had bought replacements.

Now I've developed a semi-conscious habit of not standing under lightbulbs. I guess it's the "avoid shards of flaming glass embedded in my skull" instinct kicking in. The thing about Only in China moments is they can often be followed up with "Wow! If I'd only been [a foot closer / a moment sooner / a day later] I might have been [killed / maimed / neutered].