now only if

some of the North American airlines would have such high level of
services! I called China Mobile today to "update" iron-wife's mailing
address. She has not received her bills since April. I could only
stand so long before action was taken.

I called the helpdesk at 10086. Chinese or English. Umm.... ok
English this time. The wait time was 4 seconds. And before the
Operator picked up the call, a nice recording voice announced the
employee number, just in case you want to complain! Then the guy was
on, very courteous. 3 minutes later. Done. I hang up. 2 seconds
later, a SMS to my iPhone (second generation only) asking me to rate
the service. I did with a "1" - strongly agree of the service. A
nice SMS replied saying China Mobile just want to commit to the best
customer service and satisfaction rating as possible; how's that Bell
Canada? Or Rogers? Or my formal SlackTel? Sending a dozen of these
China Mobile operators with very good English should cost one
unionized annual wage at my former boss and up the service
satisfactory rate by 100%.

Let's face it, even though this city is getting expansive by the
minute but the services at some Chinese gov't own enterprises are so
nice; we seem to be spoiled. At the immigration at Pudong Airport,
the plan is to speed up clearing of visitors through check points.
The policy is trying to get under 20 seconds for foreigner and 10
seconds for Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan "brothers". At my last
arrival at the Pudong Airport, it has installed a bank of automatic
clearing machines for Macau and Hong Kong residents. That's for sure
will be less than 10 seconds! I use those machines often at the
Zhuhai border. There, I clear thru at 10 seconds, iron-wife an hour
(at busy time). Huge line-ups.

O the "update" in quotes. Iron-wife lost her phone in April. Got a
replacement SIM card. Somehow, with a new SIM card issued the mailing
address of the bill is wiped. Hence no bill from April. I found that
out after visiting the China Mobile shop about 50 yards away from our
apartment. Yes, inquired in Mandarin. No English there! Funny, I
cannot tell anyone iron-wife's phone number in any languages other
Mandarin so is my China mobile number too!

Speaking of China mobile number, the pre-paid SIM card once charged up
is valid for more than 356 days!!!! Not like the 30-days use it or
lose it policy.