“Home is the nicest word there is.” ― Laura Ingalls Wilder
By Chinese standards our apartment is huge. That’s what everyone keeps telling us. I’m quick to admit that by American standards our apartment is huge. We have an ample 4 bedrooms situated on two stories with a kitchen (OK that’s small), a dining room, living room, and 4 patios that take up altogether about 180m2. For comparison, Hong Kong living space averages around 45m2 and the rest of China around 60m2 meters. The US living space average is approximately 201m2. . So yeah, our place is big. We can thank SMIC for this as the apartment is largely subsidized by the school to make it more affordable for expat teachers. This is because Shanghai is one of the most expensive cities in the world. Nearly 25 million people live here in an area comprising around 6,000 km2. This means about 4,000 people live in a single square kilometer. With space at a premium, apartments go up instead of out and prices follow in the same sky-rise direction.
The 4 patios we have I should clarify are not outdoor oases to lounge on and look at the beautiful tree lined canals that exist around this large city. First, recall the summer heat I mentioned in the first post. The second reason may be the pollution which so far hasn’t been shockingly bad, but I hear it gets worse. Probably the main reason is that culturally these decks are fully utilitarian and used for storing household items and for drying clothes. Everyone dries clothes outside. The decks in the apartment complex flutter with the blowing t-shirts, pants, undergarments, bedding, and towels of its many residents. Each of our patios, except for one off of our living room, are enclosed in glass windows which helps in their year-round use as well as protecting them from the rain. We have a stack-able washer dryer in our unit. As it would happen, our electric dyer doesn’t work. Maybe nobody noticed previously, or cared. For now, we are embracing the decks and their clothes drying potential, but I suspect a visit with a dryer repair man or a new dryer is in our future.
With the size of our apartment, our western heritage, or maybe both, we were strongly encouraged to participate in the Chines custom of hiring an Ayi (which literally translated means Aunt, but is the term also used to describe a housemaid) to help with weekly household chores. Our Ayi has already been here several times, and is a wonderful woman who makes you feel immediately comfortable with her but whom also wields the force of a general, taking charge of your household in an immediate and commanding fashion. We happened to meet our Ayi for the first time after coming back from an errand and finding the air conditioner repair man and washing machine delivery men at our front door. Ayi doesn’t speak any English, and neither did the service men. I speak no Chinese. But that didn’t matter. Ayi had those men fixing items, moving washers, and generally in sync with what I wanted (how did she know?) immediately. As we get to know her more, I see a friendship developing.
Maybe our Ayi can help us figure out how to repair and use the rickshaw that came with our apartment. I took a photo of Marco next to this dilapidated rickshaw sitting out front of our apartment building several days after arriving. I thought I was picturesque in its worn-down fashion. During his week-long orientation to school, Jeff found out that it belongs to our apartment. Apparently, the former residents weren’t interested in it as it has not been ridden in years. Jeff is already sourcing out mechanics and supplies to fix it. Stay tuned for photos of us riding it through the streets of Shanghai – – or at least the SMIC Living Quarters around Apartment 502.