Banfa

Last Fall I bought myself a kettle so I could rinse my market-bought vegetables in distilled water. It served me well, and then it broke. The lid wouldn't stay shut. My friend D, who likes to think there's no problem he as a native cannot solve, undertook to get it repaired. We went to a tiny storefront electrician, no luck. I suggested one might just hold the lid down with a bicycle chain, so we went to one of the little stalls that service bicycles, but first D gave the guy a chance to tinker with the kettle, which he did for a good fifteen minutes before declaring, 没办法 nothing to be done. In the end, the bicycle chain solution works just fine - but it took this quixotic excursion for me to think of it!