Our New Apartment

Now that we are living in China instead of hotel hopping, we’ve made some interesting observations about our new apartment and Chinese life in general.

First of all, tropical apartments are not set up for comfortable living during winter months. Our entire apartment floor is made of white ceramic tile which is great for cleaning purposes and effective for keeping cool in the summer. But for little two year olds who hate to be anything but barefoot, you end up with cold and dirty feet. Aaron picked up some .70 USD Hello Kitty sandals that are perfect for Maeli but we’re still having trouble keeping them attached to her. In reality we worry too much about Maeli’s body temperature. Have you noticed how little kids have this amazing capacity to wear tee-shirts in the snow?

Speaking of Maeli’s new sandals, there is a sandal phenomenon in China. It is EXTREMELY impolite to wear shoes inside anyone’s home. Instead you take your shoes off when entering a house and slip into something more comfortable. I guess this all depends on your idea of comfort considering that most Chinese will offer you plastic shower sandals. Aaron and I have gotten into this Chinese custom especially since our floor gets noticeably dirty with the use of street shoes.

On the note of cleaning, our apartment is missing a dish washer. I’m not sure if this is standard but I remember that Mrs. Li’s modern Chinese house was also lacking a dish washer. However, our kitchen is equipped with an ozone dish dryer. I’ve never seen one of these things in my life. Aaron has assured me that it’s purpose is to kill the bacteria off of the dishes after you hand wash them. The tap water is so dirty and unsafe that you need to blast them with a laser beam or whatever the heck that blue light is that saturates our dishes. Whatever the case, it scares me.

Our apartment is also missing an oven, paint on the walls, and a clothes dryer. I guess the Chinese consider a clothes dryer a waste of precious energy. So far the weather has been cool and balmy which is not ideal for line drying. The other big bummer to this scenario is that our clothes drying area is inside of our balcony so the sun can’t do it’s bleach effect. As far as I can tell, the Chinese don’t have the same bleach standard cleanliness that Americans do.

We are also missing a bathtub and shower curtain. According to some of my classmates, a lot of Chinese use a simple bucket and cup to wash themselves. At least we’re a step ahead on this basic necessity. But like most Chinese shower setups, we are minus a shower curtain. Ah…you’re asking, “Doesn’t the water get all over the bathroom?” Why, yes it does! And it gets all over the toilet and the floor and the walls, etc. But the remedy is a handy dandy floor mop. The only reason I like this solution is that the bathroom floor is NEVER dirty. And by the way, you have a special pair of sandals for the bathroom so you don’t track water through the rest of the house. Although one of my classmates only uses the sandals to avoid “Hong Kong foot” or in other words, athletes foot.

Since I’m on the topic of life’s unpleasantries, our apartment is unpleasantly loud. We only have a few neighbors and it’s not them who are noisy. Like most apartment complexes in China, it’s brand new. The industrial revolution is sweeping the nation and the nation is sweeping to the cities. That means construction and lots of it. So during working hours all we hear are drills, hammers, and a slew of other unidentifiable noises. Aaron’s Ipod is becoming more of a work essential rather than a perk.

Even though differences abound in our new Chinese apartment, things really aren’t that bad. It’s nice to have a home again.

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