'McDonald's who?' and 'yes means no'

this post is going to be two short ones in one.

first, would you ever imagine that you would meet someone who had never heard of McDonald's? well, yesterday i did. i am sitting outside my hostel and these tibetan students walk by and we start chatting. they mention KFC and how their english teaching told them it is different here than in america, so said, yeah, it's the same with McDonald's. they looked at each other. paused. and then one of them pulled out the chinese to english dictionary and asked me to spell the word. they had never heard of McDonald's. the most global of brands. it made me quite happy. there is still a place where the greasy fries and soy patties have not overtaken. but alas, there are three KFC's in town. and their all very busy.

second, it seems that every time someone here tells me 'yes, that can be done', or 'it's already taken care of,' that really means when i come back to pick it up i will have to start all over and work even harder to get stuff done. this happened with my visa, my translator, my school registration, the health check for my visa, and with many smaller things as well. i have been here for more than three weeks and i am still having to work at getting some of the basic stuff finalized. i just want to get to my research. but i guess i better get used to it.