This past Wednesday, I received a pair of soft contact lenses… and to say the least they are much harder to get in than what I expected, at least at first.

Monday, I was at the doctor’s to try them on for the first time. The people there tried prying my eyes open and inserting them, but no such luck, after a good twenty-some minutes of trying I opted to try it myself.

Another half an hour later, I’m still there, frustrated at my inability to get  a piece of soft plastic in between each of my eyes and eyelids.

Wednesday, the day I’m scheduled to have my “training session”, I try to get them in. About twenty minutes in, the left eye one is in. I have a mini-celebration in my head… until I remembered there was another one.

I sigh, and proceed to get the right one in, expecting it to be much quicker since I got one in already…. exactly the opposite. I was told I was doing everything correctly, but the contact just wouldn’t stick onto my eyeball. Getting increasingly annoyed, I put the contact back in the container, wiped my hands on a paper towel then picked the contact back up in my right index finger. I pulled up my right eyelid with my left index finger then pushed down my lower lid with my right middle finger. I pushed the contact towards my eye, feeling the jellyfish-like plastic touch my eye. The assistant told me that it was touching my eye and to look upwards, then to the right, then to the left.

“Now, slowly bring back your finger and blink a few times,” she said. I did so then looked at my right hand, the contact wasn’t there, meaning it was in my eye or it fell. I looked at the mirror and a little glint of blue was beneath my eye- the contact came out.

I took in an aggravated breath and did the same thing. Again the contact touched my eye and left my index finger. This time, the assistant added the instruction to lightly tap on my right eye after bringing my finger back, which I did… and the contact was in. 5o minutes of trouble finally gave into getting the contacts in. The assistant congratulated me and then reminded me not to rub my eyes or else I might damage my cornea if there is something trapped underneath my contact.

Next, the doctor came to see me. The right contact was awfully bothering me, and I couldn’t see as clearly through it as I could with the left. I expressed this to the doctor and she told me to sit down in the chair. Then she shined a bright light into my eye, frowned, and then told me I put it in inside out. She told me to stay still, and then she plucked it from my eye, flipped it over, and tried to put it in. Multiple tries later, she tells me to try it myself.

I took the contact in my hand and went back to where I spent nearly the last hour getting the pieces of plastic in my eye. Surprisingly, after about 10 minutes, I get it back in. Delighted, I take a look around. Now, the assistant told me I have to learn how to take them out. She told me this would be quicker and easier than getting them in. Unsurprisingly, for me it still took quite some time.

I touched my right index finger to my left eye, touching the plastic surface, and swiped down. My vision started to blur as the contact left my pupil. Nope, I said as it slided back up on its own. Slide down. Nope. Down. Nope. Down….. UGH. I tried the other eye. Swipe down. Nope. Down. Nope. Down. Nope… UGH. I went back to my right eye. I swiped down, then blinked. My vision went back to what it was. I looked on my hand. No contact. I looked in the mirror, and there it was, right on my cheek again. I chuckled and plucked it off and placed it in the container then proceeded to get the other one out. It took another 20 minutes, but I finally got it out.

Then, I was instructed how to clean them by rubbing it on my hands for at least 30 seconds.”Remember”, she reminded me, “don’t rub in a circle, only back and forth”. I nod back. “Otherwise, you might rip the contact.”

“Do you want to wear the contacts home?” asks the assistant.

“No, I think I’m all set,” I reply with a slight smile.

Thursday, it’s Thanksgiving. I just put my first ever pumpkin pie in the oven and then I decided to try on my contacts. I got my right eye one in about 10 minutes, but the left one took twice as long. I had the same issue of doing the procedure right, but the contact just not sticking to my eye. I was quite happy to be able to see nearly as well as I would be with glasses. Though for some reason, the right eye just didn’t seem to be very clear.

About two hours later, as I am supposed to, I take out my contacts with much less trouble, but still taking about 20 minutes to get them out. I clean them and then snap on the covers with a sigh of relief.

Friday. I’m able to place in my right eye contact in about 15 minutes. I looked down at the left eye contact and noticed a rip in its side. Ughh. I put it in anyways, but quickly decided to take them out considering that a broken contact  might not be good for my eye.

Saturday (Today). I went to the doctor’s office to check on why my right eye wasn’t so clear. We went through nearly every brand of contacts to find one that works for me. None seemed to make my right eye clear. I was in the office for nearly two hours. The doctor joked that even though I wasn’t able to achieve clear vision through my right eye, at least I got the practice. Towards the end of the visit, I was able to put my contacts in extremely quickly (less than 2 minutes each).

My doctor is ordering yet another kind of contacts for me to try on, and I’m crossing my fingers that they’ll work well for me.

Overall though, contacts bring along a new level of freedom and mobility, even if they are a hassle to begin with. If you try to notice them in your eye, you will, but if you just carry on with what you do each day, you don’t notice them at all and once again, you have peripheral vision.

Oh, and by the way, check out EricOuyang.Com, if you haven’t yet. I’ve uploaded both the intro page and the front page of the site for you to see.

Recently, I’ve had the experience of buying some stuff online in China (In particular, two electronic dictionaries),while I was in China, on the website TaoBao, which is similar to eBay here in the States. And I have to say…. it was more complicated then I expected.

First, to go through this process, you have to have a banking account with online banking enabled, which involves going to the bank and getting forms signed to enable it. According to my uncle, in the past, you didn’t have to go through this to get online banking, but because of security issues, this extra step was put in.

Next, I assumed that I was all set to go ahead to purchase something on TaoBao, like in the U.S., but I was wrong. In case you haven’t purchased something online before, basically you go to a secure website (with https at the front of the URL) and enter in your name, credit card number, your credit card’s expiration date, and then the security code (the 3 digit code on the back), to send money to the online store. I tried this, but I received an error message. I first had to go to the online banking account website for the card to configure things over there.

For this particular bank, which was the Bank of Communication, you had to enter in your card number and then your PIN (which we set up when we created our card) to log in and create an account. Then you had to enter in a cell phone number. At this point, I was really questioning if buying something online was worth the trouble (it was quite a bit cheaper though, 150 yuan each). I typed in my cell phone number (a temporary pay-as-you-go one that I used for the two months I was there) and then it said that it would send a confirmation number to it. So in a few seconds my phone beeped to tell me I received a text message. Following that, I had to enter this pin into the website. On the form it also made me put in some “verification phrase”, and I wasn’t sure what this was. Clicking on the help button revealed that it was a phrase that I put in that would be displayed during every transaction so I would be confident that the website was not a fraudulent one. Finally, online banking was all set for me.

Though the process wasn’t quite done yet. Next, on Taobao, I clicked on the button for the banking company that I was using, then it brought me to the bank’s website to complete the transaction, and sure enough my verification phrase was there. There, it sent my cell phone another confirmation number to type in as well as my card number and pin. After clicking “confirm”, I was brought back to the TaoBao website where it told me that my purchase was successful.

A few days later,  I received a package with my stuff, and then I had one last step to complete. On the TaoBao website, I had to confirm that I had received the package (in case the seller was a fraud) so it would send the money to the selling person.

Whew. That was quite a bit of work! Well it goes to show that Chinese online shopping is quite secure. But still, many Chinese are not completely sure of buying things online. They worry that their card number would be stolen, or they are sent fake products or defective ones, so most people just continue to buy things at actual stores. And even with this long process to securely setup and purchase something online, there are still stories of getting your money stolen online in China.

It might take a while, but I do think that with time people in China will slowly start getting accustomed to online shopping and make more of their purchases with a few clicks of a mouse.