The day after the concert was our final day. I woke to some angry talk coming from down the hall, I went to investigate. I quickly found out it was a problem related to something we did the previous day before the performance.
When we entered the theater that morning it was already 90 degrees inside. There was no air conditioning, and the theater held fifteen hundred people, so it would get even hotter during the performance.
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They showed us where we would change costumes and wait before the show. There was food and bottled water set out for us, but no towels. We were dancing back-to-back pieces and needed to do quick costume changes. The stage was dirty, and the stage lights were hot. My dancers would be drenched. We needed towels. I asked my tour manager to collect towels from our rooms at the campus hotel and bring them for us to use at the theater.
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The next morning the maid in charge of our rooms was giving our tour manager a loud and angry lecture and pointing to the pile of towels in his room that he had brought back after our performance. He had brought them back assuming they would be collected and washed by the hotel laundry. But that morning we learned in China one does not dirty the towels. Just as one does not borrow coffee cups from the dining room.
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This was serious. Only a generation earlier China had been a much poorer country. Within the living memory of many Chinese, they had suffered poverty, scarcity, and famine. Things like towels, cups, and tin spoons were resources one still did not take for granted. If they were lost someone had to pay. And if there were food shortages those things could be traded for food.
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I ran to the front desk with our interpreter to see what could be done. Several members of the hotel staff had collected at the front desk and were obviously upset about our misuse of the towels. My tour manager was also upset. He hated the food, there was no ice for his drinks, and now he was being yelled at.
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It was clear I was supposed to fix things. That is what the leader does. I bowed to those at the front desk and began by asking how I could help resolve the problem. The answer was quick, “Pay for towels!” I agreed and handed over several red and green bills of Chinese currency decorated with Chairman Mao’s portrait. They took the money and counted it and agreed it would be enough to cover the cost of the towels. Then I asked for the receipt. Silence. “What is a receipt?”
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The interpreter tried to explain that I wanted a piece of paper documenting payment for the towels. That way if there was any question when we left the hotel the next day, we could show that we had paid for the towels. After some further exchanges between our interpreter and the clerk behind the front desk, I received a piece of paper that had been printed out and signed by the desk clerk. It was all in Chinese of course. I hoped it would document our transaction.
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The next morning. we were on our way. We climbed onto the bus that would take us to our next city. We had traveled about a quarter of a mile when our interpreter received a call from the hotel. “Come back, you dirtied the towels.” The interpreter informed me of this and I hesitated for a moment. I imagined an international incident. American dance company insensitive to Chinese hosts; company members detained by Chinese officials.
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I dug through my purse and found the piece of paper given to me by the clerk at the front desk. I stood up waving my sheet of paper for the interpreter to see, “I have a receipt. I paid for the towels,” I told the interpreter. “We’re not going back. We’re late and we are going on,” I directed.
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The interpreter did not argue with me. I sat down in my seat again, hoping the rules of saving face by not contradicting the leader still applied. They did.