In mid-November I set up camp in Kunming, China, in order to study Mandarin. I didn’t want to live at a hostel for several months, so I perused the classifieds at GoKunming (no Craigslist here) and found a room.
Following is a highlight of all the quirks of my apartment, but I want to stress that this post isn’t a complaint — my apartment is luxurious by Chinese standards and I’m very grateful for it. I simply want to point out the differences in standards between China and the US.
First, I have four doors to get through to get inside. I live inside a gated complex, complete with uniformed guards, and I use a card to open both the gate and the door to my stairwell. I live on the 6th floor (though in the States it would be considered the 7th), and there is no elevator. The lights inside my stairwell operate on a sort of “clapper” system that registers the sounds of footsteps on the cement and turns the lights on. I usually have to stamp a foot at least once on my way up to turn a light on, an act I still take incredible delight in even after nearly two months — it makes me feel like a little kid. Once at my apartment, there’s a large metal door to open and then a regular wooden door to go through. I’m not sure why there is so much security, as I’ve always felt relatively safe in Kunming, but perhaps I have the four doors and the security guards to thank for that.
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Once inside, I step onto large, shiny tiles, though my bedroom has wood floors. But let’s start with the bathroom, since Chinese restrooms are notoriously… simple. My bathroom is a mix of Western and Eastern — in fact, it appears as though it was originally designed to be a basic Chinese bathroom but was “upgraded” with Western facilities. The result is a leaky mishmash; it would’ve been better to have just stayed Chinese. There’s a Western toilet, which is nice (though I personally prefer the Chinese squat toilet), a sink and a shower. The shower head is installed on the wall, and the stall itself looks to be a later addition to the room. It leaks all over the floor and the shower drain backs up, leaving me ankle-deep in bathwater. It would have been better to have left the stall out and let the water drain into the floor like it was originally intended to.
There’s a washing machine the size of a bread maker, rising to just above my knees. I can do about one load of underwear at a time in it. To use it, I have to plug it in and stick a hose into the drain in the floor. I don’t find it inconvenient at all, especially considering that Wal-mart still sells blocks of laundry soap for the many people who wash their clothes by hand. There’s no clothes dryer, of course; all laundry is hung outside no matter what the weather. And, keeping in tune with Chinese plumbing, all toilet paper goes in the trash, not the toilet.
Next, the kitchen. Again, the sink has a hose that drains into the floor, rather than plumbing that’s all attached and out of sight. There’s no oven, and a small refrigerator is actually outside the kitchen in the eating area. A stove, which is very similar to my parents’ two-burner propane camp stove, is what all the cooking is done on. Only one burner works, and the non-functioning hood is covered in grease. No oven, no microwave. My Chinese roommate has a giant jar of MSG, which I’ve seem him sprinkle liberally onto his meals. Like the washing machine, the counters are only thigh high. And as you can probably guess, there’s no dishwasher.
Finally, my bedroom. I have a luxurious queen-sized bed that I share with my laptop (there is a slow wifi-connection). The window doesn’t seal, and the China soundtrack of motorbike alarms, cell phones, and loogie hocking winds down around 11pm and starts up almost exactly at 7am. Even though I’m way up high, there are metal bars on the windows, though there’s a plan in Kunming to remove all the bars from city windows — a massive project.
In general I feel very comfortable where I live, save for one aspect: no central heating. When the temperature dropped below zero last month, it was nearly impossible to get comfortable. My exhaled breath hung in white clouds, and if I wanted to type I would have to warm my hands under my covers every other sentence. I have two quilts and my down sleeping bag, plus a small electric blanket that thankfully I haven’t needed recently.
For all of this, I pay less than $200 per month, and that’s actually a large sum here. I’m in a great neighborhood, on a tree-lined, boutique-filled street about two blocks away from a couple of streets filled with Western-style cafes and bars. A small market across the street sells everything I might need, from oranges to live fish and chickens to noodles to cuts of meat. Down the road is a large park where I can meander and watch the Chinese dance in sync.
To read more about my life in China, click here.