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Published: January 24th 2010
Bedroom
This is merely an example of the types of apartments I was shownIt was supposed to be so easy. Fly into Beijing, sail through customs, find apartment, start work. A simple step-by-step instruction manual of what to do when moving back to a foreign country and starting a new job.
But life is never that simple, is it?
This story begins in Phoenix, Arizona in the wee early morning hours of Sunday, January 4. My gracious parents escorted me to the Phoenix airport an hour from their home in the desert, and with mixed feelings of sadness at leaving my nuclear family unit and excitement of what lay ahead, I bid them adieu.
One of my new colleagues greeted me at the airport in Beijing with the observation that he was able to distinguish who I was from others arriving on my flight by my nose piercing. Apparently, it had been evident in the photo I'd sent with my visa application and was the most memorable thing about my appearance to him. As we continued chatting, I began to take stock of my surroundings and stopped dead in my tracks when we ventured outside.
What sweet torture was this? Huge mounds of dirty snow were scattered willy-nilly as
Kitchen
This is merely an example of the types of apartments I was shown People's Liberation Army solders futilely attempted to brush away the gently falling snow with old-fashioned brooms made out of long twigs. Snow? In Beijing? In the two years I'd lived there, I'd seen actual falling snow once and it hadn't lasted an hour. I was about to discover that the night prior to my arrival Beijing had been assaulted by an enormous snowstorm that dumped over eight inches on the city, bringing it to a virtual standstill and forcing the government to close schools and businesses. To make matters worse, the biting winds blowing in from Siberia contributed to the coldest temperatures on record in the city for the past 50 years.
Welcome back.
As I shivered in my thin, yet fashionable, peacoat, I flung my suitcases on the ground, ripped one open, and frantically dug through clothing in search of my ladylike gloves (also thin) and a hat. It wasn't that I'd come unprepared (after all, I had planned to buy a winter coat after my arrival), but I had been ambushed by the snow and cold before I was ready. Life in China is nothing but unpredictable.
Until I had time to find my own
Kitchen 2
This is merely an example of the types of apartments I was shown apartment, I planned to stay with a former coworker from my teaching days who had moved into a hutong in the Jiaodaokou area of Beijing, a mere two subway stops from my office. Unfortunately for me, the hutongs are a confusing maze of twisting footpaths and unexpected courtyards. As I trudged through the sloppy snow and navigated the frozen, icy sidewalks, my teeth chattered and I couldn't feel my toes. I was looking forward to the following day when I could my own apartment in a more clearly laid-out locale. Alas, it was not to be. I would put in three full days of work before being given an opportunity to look for an apartment. After I began my search, though, I would quickly surmise that the jetlagged fog I spent at the office was a blessing in disguise, designed to steel my resolve and harden my will for the days ahead.
I began my search online via thebeijing.com, a digital version of a magazine catering to expatriates called "That's Beijing!". I quickly discovered, however, that since the magazine caters to expats, the rent is accordingly high. Though my salary is an exceptionally good one by Chinese standards, it
is not at the level of businessmen or international school staff. Therefore, I turned to Chinese real estate agencies, such as Wo Ai Wo Jia (I love my family) and the like. I found an ad for an apartment within my price range that I liked online and called the number listed. A man answered, voice syrupy sweet, but as soon as he discovered that I was unwilling to pay the 'foreigners' price,' he became unreasonable and hung up on me. Strike one. The next three I rang up promised to call me back "just as soon as they heard anything." By day three, I elected to write them off.
The fourth day I was in Beijing, I left the office with a colleague to submit my paperwork and application for the Certificate of Health, which is required in order to receive my residence permit. Of course, step one of the application for a residence permit is finding a residence. Since I only had 30 days in which to apply for and receive the residence permit before being heavily fined, time quickly became of the essence.
My colleague agreed to look at some apartments with me before we
returned to the office. In good spirits and optimistic, we chatted as we hailed a taxi to our first destination, the health clinic. Soon enough, we were stuck in the chaotic mess that is Beijing traffic and could only watch as the fare meter climbed steadily higher. It took us nearly an hour to drive the 20 kilometers (12 miles) to the health clinic. Wearily, we climbed out of the taxi and into the melee of foreigners and their Chinese coworkers who were all vying to be examined first. With great foresight, I had undergone the examination in the United States and had the form notarized, so I was able to wave my papers around in the air and get in and out without too much issue.
Refreshed, we continued to the first apartment. As soon as we walked in, I knew something was wrong. A tall, gangly kid barely out his teens and wearing an ill-fitting, faded black suit with a nametag bearing his employee ID number barely glanced up from the blaring cartoon show he was watching. This was supposed to be the landlord? My colleague was insulted and demanded we leave immediately. I readily agreed. The
Santas
What are they doing?
Only in China apartment wasn't in bad shape, but the location was not ideal for my purposes. Thus, we left.
The next few apartments were nondescript and unacceptable for a variety of reasons. As we had been absent from the office for much of the morning, my colleague and I agreed to look at one more apartment and then call it a day. We returned to the real estate storefront to wait for the last apartment owner. We waited...and waited...and waited some more. In China, it is not uncommon for someone to be as much as an hour late for a meeting. I have yet to ascertain whether this is because the culture is more relaxed than American culture about being on time, or if is because the Beijing traffic is so ridiculous that is impossible for anyone to have the fortitude to get anywhere on time, ever.
After forty-five tortuous minutes, the owner of the apartment showed up, apologizing profusely. As soon as I saw her, my irritation melted away. She was a tiny bird of a woman, elderly, but with fire in her eyes and sassy as all get out. I liked her immediately. My adoration was soon tested,
however, when she mentioned a 'slight issue' that needed to be corrected. Immediately, my red flags went up. No issue in China is ever small. With trepidation, I followed her into the dark hallway, through a courtyard, and into the elevator.
My first indication something was wrong was when her key didn't work. The real estate agent with me laughed it off as old age, but I knew there was nothing 'old' about this tiny woman. She finally got the door open, telling me that there had been a small leak in the bathroom, but that it would be fixed in about four days. As I stepped into the apartment, my mouth dropped open and I audibly gasped. Where the sofa should have been, lay pieces of the bathtub. Bags upon bags of heavy cement filled the room, some spilling out onto the dirty linoleum floor. A single bulb buzzed overhead. The little old lady took my arm and dragged me over to the bathroom- or where the bathroom used to be. I couldn't help but step back. The entire room was demolished. Tiles lay smashed into a million pieces on the dirt. Where the floor should have been
stood a gaping hole, exposing the water pipe below. As I tried to wrap my head around the extent of the work to be done, the owner of the apartment prattled on about the virtues of the apartment: the view of the city, the beautiful wood floor in the bedroom, the brand new mattress, end table, and bathroom sink- which had taken up residence next to the headboard of the bed. I looked her in the eye and asked how long it would take to put the apartment back together again. Unable to look at me, she said she and her neighbors had not yet come to an agreement about who should pay for the burst water pipe and subsequent damage, but that she thought 'fifteen, maybe twenty days at the most.' All I could do was smile to myself at the idiosyncrasies of the Chinese attitude toward such things.
And then I was out of there like a bat out of hell- which, in a way, it kind of was.
The following week proved no better. Convinced I could win the battle if I had an army on my side, I asked my Chinese host mom to accompany me and use her magical powers of persuasion to convince the real estate agents that I was actually Chinese and should get the Chinese price. In her bid to help me secure a place at the lowest possible cost, we visited two truly hideous dwellings. The first "apartment" consisted of a bed and a ladder- and a fresh coat of paint, mind you. The bathroom (which was also the kitchen (yes, you read that correctly)) was across the hall, protected by an antiquated lock that took a mere five minutes to unscrew and open. The second apartment wasn't too bad, save for the broken glass littering the barren, concrete hallway and the sickly sweet smell of rotting garbage. Strike two.
After days of fruitless and frustrating searching, I decided to give it a rest and ducked into a tiny hutong restaurant for a bowl of noodles. As I sat and waited for the delicious combination of egg, tomato, noodle, and broth (heavenly on a freezing Beijing afternoon), I noticed an elderly man sitting at the table adjacent to mine who was eying me curiously. He asked if I was from the Northeast. Assuming he meant the New York metropolitan area, I replied that I was, in fact, from the Midwest, close to Canada. He reeled back in surprise. He had been been referring to northeastern China; after listening to me converse with my new friend, the proprietor of the restaurant, he thought I'd grown up in China. What a compliment! With renewed zeal, I slurped down my noodles and prepared to venture out again into the freezing Beijing winter.
Work commitments kept me from continuing my search for the next few days, but after two weeks in Beijing, I began feeling a measure past desperate. I can only imagine how the friend I was staying with felt. Like the true Beijinger I've become over the past years in China, I decided it was time to utilize my
guanxi , my connections. A friend gave me a mysterious card with a name and a phone number. Soon enough, I found myself stepping into another slew of disastrous apartments. One looked promising, but the overpowering, fetid smell emitting from the drain in the bathroom turned me off as soon as I opened the door. Another was completely barren of furniture, but could be furnished "as soon as I signed the lease." . So much for guanxi.
In the end, what made the difference was trusting the recommendation of a new friend. We'll call her Annie. Annie and I originally met when she showed me an apartment in the Tuanjiehu area during the first week of my search. Although I was interested in the place, the landlord elected to let the flat to a friend instead of a foreigner (while not a common practice anymore, some landlords do find renting to foreigners troublesome, due to the extensive paperwork and household registration required). At any rate, Annie referred me to a friend, who wound up showing me the apartment of my dreams (at least in this story).
My new apartment is on the sixth floor of a six-story government-built apartment with no elevator (saving me tons on gym membership fees!). Though the outside of the buildings in the complex look rundown and the stairwells are concrete and cheerless, the inside of the apartments are really quite nice. My apartment is 40 square meters; quite small, but certainly enough space for me. I have a tiny living room with a nice flat-screen TV (and cable!), a large bedroom with a king-size bed and an enormous wardrobe, a kitchen, and a bathroom. There are beautiful wood floors throughout and the furniture is quite new. After weeks of searching, endless dead-ends, false starts, false hopes, and false promises, the Mecca of Merritt has been found.
Now if I could only find time to decorate.
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Sam
non-member comment
I enjoy reading about what a long road it is to get an apartment that you can be happy with in Beijing, very detail and engaging read, I enjoy reading it a lot! :)