The Great Eva Chow Shoe Mystery

In August, Angela was in China visiting Beijing and some family in Shanghai. While in Beijing, Angela was kind enough to purchase 3 pairs of shoes for Rachel.

You see, Rachel came to China with 1 pair of black shoes, Tevas, a pair of flip-flops, and tennis shoes. And the local shops really only carry shoes up to American size 7. So Rachel's large foreigner feet just cannot be accommodated here. So when you work full time, having only one pair of respectable shoes to wear is not really sufficient. [editor's note: on multiple occasions prior to coming to China, I encouraged Rachel to look at shoes. Did she listen? Hmmmm.....]


Which is why Angela, when in Beijing, purchased shoes to send to her here.

August passed. No shoes.

September rolls around. No shoes.

Rachel checks with Angela, and confirmed that her aunt mailed the shoes from Shanghai.

Several weeks ago, there WAS a package at school. A shoe-sized box. That had "SHOES" written on the side. Problem was, the package was addressed to Eva Chow. So it sat.

And sat. And sat.

And then, poof! It disappeared.

The plot thickens. Rachel then gets a message from Angela - a friend of hers in Beijing got a call from Chengdu, saying that she would be receiving a package. Apparently, our school - which was equally confused about the Eva Chow package - called the phone number on the box and got a hold of this girl in Beijing. They got her address and sent it off to her.

Our theory? Auntie in Shanghai confused the names and sent Rachel's shoes to us, but with a mislabelled name. But the mystery continues - it was a small box, probably containing only 1 pair of shoes. Did Angela only send one? Was the Eva Chow package not really Rachel's shoes?

And in the end, Rachel still wears black shoes to school everyday. And if Rachel's shoes really did get sent to Beijing, the fact remains that in all likelihood, the money spent on shipping has far surpassed the actual cost of the shoes. Ohhhh well.

-alan