Apartment Search

Speaking of finding apartments, we found out this last month that we need to move out of our school-provided apartment. First, let me give you some background information: The school rents an entire building right down the street for staff dorms. Apartment buildings in China usually have a stairwell with an external door, and two apartments on each stair landing. So, for example, a 6 story building has 12 units in each stairwell. Buildings also have 2-3 stairwells in them, and each stairwell is called a unit. Our staff apartment has 3 units in it (A-C) with 6 floors. At the end of this last year, the school gave the option of moving off-campus to most teachers in the dorms, because they had a lot of new teachers coming in (us), and they were converting B-unit to dorms.

Now, the old dorms were actually on the campus, in one of the classroom buildings. But, they converted all of those to offices, and moved the students. After the school year started, they realized that they had much higher dorm enrollment then they were expecting, and told us that they were giving us the option of moving out. Normally, they don't give this offer to teacher who have been here for less than 2 years.

Now, they give us a housing allowance of about 24600RMB a year (about $320USD/month), which is more than enough to get a rather nice apartment off campus. In fact, the off-campus apartments are bigger and nicer than our current apartment, and slightly cheaper. So, we found an apartment on the 6th floor with a really nice layout, and are working with the school interpreter to negotiate all the details. Here in China, you can negotiate anything, and ask for anything in an apartment. For example, we asked for a water stand (for 5gal water bottles), 2 A/C units (small room-style), a computer desk, a flat-screen TV (common request now-a-days), and we would have asked for a much larger fridge, but their was already one in there.

Our apartment is fully furnished (very common), with nicer furnishings (not so common), a large bathroom (not common), with a showerhead which is NOT right above the toilet (VERY not common), a new washing machine, and lots of windows for natural light (also, not very common).

Seriously, what are the Chinese thinking? The bathrooms are really small, but I think they are designed for a squat toilet, which used to be common. But, when you install a showerhead, water heater, Western-style toilet, sink, washing machine, etc, then the bathroom becomes too small. But, size aside, why would the showerhead be installed over the toilet?

Now, heating in China is accomplished by hot water from a boiler pumped through pipes into each apartment, either through the floor (nice), or radiators (not so nice). Thankfully, our new apartment has floor heating, and is only 2400RMB for the whole winter, instead of 3000RMB like our current apartment.

So, we get a stipend for the rent, but we are responsible for heating fees, management fees (such as cleaning of the stairs, elevator power, external maintenance), gas, water, power, internet+phone, and cable (which we probably will not get). Overall, its a good situation. We will update you all as the negotiations take place.