Getting Domestic

Today I spent the afternoon getting domestic. Yes, I have a fixed
address again, but unfortunately, I can’t pronounce it to save my life! I
only know how to get here from the University I’ve been hanging around
(thanks Tom!) while I’ve been looking for a place to stay.

Oddly enough, after I’d heard so many horror stories about Chinese
apartments, moving in was quite uneventful. They are just like Russian
apartments, small, basic, and dusty. My new apartment has two and a half
living rooms; my bedroom (12ftx12ft), my flatmate’s room (8ftx12ft), and a
wide hallway (don’t ask) that functions as the living room. I lucked out
with a nice enclosed porch that I’m already utilizing as my
working/relaxing space.

The shower is the most interesting aspect, if you ask me. Like a
Finnish shower, there is no defined shower space, just a drain in the
middle of the floor next to the toilet. Unlike the Finnish ones, which are
huge and luxurious, this one is small and efficient to leave enough space
for the other 200+million inhabitants of Beijing.

Now the legality of my accommodation intrigues me. Officially,
westerners are only allowed to live in PSB (Public Security Bureau)
approved housing, which usually means outrageously overpriced crap.
Unofficially, if your landlord has clout (mine has a brother in the PSB),
you can do whatever you damn well please.

I have been told that there will be times when the PSB has to look like
they’re doing something, and we’ll have to hide out at the University for
a day so as not to become ‘examples.’ I can deal with that
though, because thankfully, ‘unofficial’ housing prices are
reasonable here. Our apartment is only $250 per month.

With this settlement in my travels, I’ll be getting back to what ya’ll
like the best, my weekly journals and random experiences with all the
colors I can capture with my scanner, so sit back and enjoy!

November Update

I’ve moved again! Now I am living in approved housing, an
apartment in a hotel compound. It is nicer than it sounds, but still
I feel segregated from China. Hmm.. I think that’s the
intent.

Anyway, today, at 8C, was the first day I would call ‘winter’
in China. It was this cold yesterday, but since I was too sick to go
outside until today, it didn’t count.

Today at work, I realized the difference between Russian and Chinese
housing. My new apartment is Soviet, designed and built in the 1950’s, its
so warm I have one of the small window panes (1/4 of the window) open in
the kitchen to keep my apartment at the right temp. If I shut the window,
the hot water radiators will bake me, not to mention the smell of my
downstairs neighbors cooking choking me.

It’s a different story at work. We have heaters there too, two in fact.
One hot water radiator like home and one forced-air conditioner/heater
mounted on the wall. With them both cranking, my office is toasty, that is
until someone opens the door. Then my officemate and I get an arctic blast
from the hallway.

See, oddly enough, they don’t shut the windows in the hallway or
bathrooms, so there is no warmth outside all of our closed-door offices!
These freaks wonder why everyone bitches about Chinese housing. Its not
cuz the houses are poor, they are similar to toasty-warm Russian
apartments, its that the occupants are too stupid to shut the windows in
the winter time!

I’ve taken to screaming ‘zatcrete devair!’ every time someone
enters our office. That’s ‘shut the door’ in my heavily accented
Russian. No, they don’t understand what I’m saying, but they do know what
I mean. I only have to yell once or twice before that person learns. Too
bad, a few dozen wander in my office every day.