My Apartment-China Style

My New Home

My employer-the Yi Jian English School provides a modest furnished apartment for me. This is standard for all foreign teachers. It’s quite big by Chinese standards but still, for a westerner it is really small.

However, I am quite close to work.

The kitchen has a single gas burner and a small fridge. A microwave is not standard issue or a normal appliance. One very odd thing is the gas water heater. It took quite some doing to figure out how it works.

The bedroom is small and narrow and is the wide of a double bed. I do get a TV and a DVD player included! Also included is an ADSL connection. This was quite a puzzle to figure out how to use. Finally, one of the teaching assistants was able to unravel the mystery.

Today’s adventure begins with-no water!-for some reason, the water has been turned off. Again I get to have a cold shower.

This week’s important task is to get someone to show me how to use the washing machine. It looks like I have to hang my clothes dry. I cannot even escape this by finding a laudromat-there are none to be found.

The garbage pickup system is a big surprise. There is no regular pickup, nor is there any obvious place outside the building that garbage should go. The system is to place garbage outside your door at night and it will be picked up by ‘cleaners’ everyday-in the morning or at night.

The lighting is awful in the stairwells and outside the building. Actually, there is no lighting. There rear building faces are just left unpainted and it really looks like I live in a slum.