"Would you like to take a survey?"

Me: "Would you have a couple of minutes to share your thoughts on health care in Shanghai?"

Most People:"Piss off"; "No"; "No, f--k you" (in a few languages)

Me: "Thank you so much"; "Okay, well enjoy your day"; "That's really not appropriate"; "You've never even met my mother, why would you say such horrible things?"

So if you can't guess from the examples of my interactions with strangers today, this afternoon I took my first shot at surveying the expat population at XinTianDi about health care. Not exactly what you would call "successful" or "a pleasant experience" or "something I ever want to do again." It wasn't all bad, XinTianDi, the sight where Mao and others formed the communist party in China, is quite a sight and the few people who did agree to be surveyed were pretty nice about it. The other interesting thing is that spending a few hours outside in the afternoon heat and air pollution is a great way to make a person not want to do anything else for the rest of the day... I got home last night, took a shower, ate a little and then passed out watching a movie around 8:00 pm. I'm supposed to go try the same thing at Carrefour, a huge shopping center that caters to expats... at least it's air conditioned, but if things keep going as depressingly as they did yesterday I'm going to have to ask that they toss a valium or prozak prescription in with my tiny monthly stipend. Have a great day everybody.