Life in China is seldom boring.

Around 9:30 AM this morning, we had a cake delivered to our flat. We didn’t order it, there was no note.

An hour later, we had three cups of honey bubble tea delivered to our house. We didn’t order it, there was no note. But there was a phone number that ended in 9193. We had no idea who 9193 was, but I did wonder, as a typical American, if someone was trying to poison us.

An hour later, we had a personal sized durian pizza and a bag of four chicken nuggets delivered to our house. Same deal. Same number. Same concerns.

This isn’t so unusual for us, believe it or not. Last week, the guards at our flat said that someone tried to deliver a cake and coffee to us. A month ago, someone delivered several sauces to us. A couple of months ago, someone delivered a bag of stationary to us. The only hint of who was behind this was a note that this was all for an American family (we’re the only one in our complex), and it was sent by someone named Crystal.

Of course, I was immediately suspicious about all of it. Is this stuff poisoned? Is someone setting us up for a scam? What’s really going on? Being an American can really be tedious.

Turns out our anonymous benefactor didn’t do a great job covering her tracks, and left her WeChat info with the guards. We were able to contact her today, and it turns out that K had helped promote her business a while back on Chinese social media, and she just wanted to say thank you.

And so, notebooks and sauces and cake and coffee and juice and honey tea and pizza stretched out over months. Just to say thank you for something we didn’t even realize we had done.