My New Flat!
I've moved! I can now be found behind this girly fú 福. I got it yesterday while food shopping with my new flatmate Kyoko, 'cos every door needs a 福.
I moved in on Saturday morning with the help of that friend who so enthusiastically offered to help that he ended up helping. His name's Edge of the World. We didn't use a peng-peng in the end, we just carried all my stuff between us from the Teachers' flat to mine, a very short distance - I can see my last xiaoqu from my new front doorstep.
In those few blocks there's a world of difference. The buildings are old standard flats covered in streaks and stains, and some have those blue plastic windows that I don't understand. Everything's kind of run-down. In this kind of dingy area, the insides of individual flats are sometimes done up really swankily. My flat isn't, though. It's a nice enough little two-bedroom flat with wooden flooring and plenty of furniture and cupboard space. I've been in it four days now and have been cleaning and sorting it out, but also lazing around enjoying the self-containment. I think it's so amazing, how you can have power, water and cooking gas piped into your personal home for you to use.
It's lovely and warm and I have a spacious room with a good hard bed and a worn old desk and chair. The fridge and washing machine are new and there's a two-ring gas stove. The kitchen still needs pans and things, but Ever Basic and Alien have left us a little rice cooker. I've never used a rice cooker before - that's how basic I am. When people stop asking me out to dinner every day, I'll work out how to make food again. The concept's become a bit alien.
I was very past it and edgy the day I moved in, since I had pressing issues like not having sheets to sleep in, a kettle to boil drinking water or a mop to start cleaning with. Also, I didn't yet know if Kyoko was actually going to move in, and was generally disoriented and a bit lonely at having moved from la-la land into the real world. But Edge of the World was indispensable, he stayed while I arranged things with the landlady, and then waited around while a lip-fluffed youth with finger-gloves installed broadband.
The landlady is called Whoosh! Bright-and-Clear Wang, Elder Sister Wang to me. She's 43 and pretty with a long face and big watery eyes. She works in the city centre. Her name kind of loses something in translation... it's from a verse by Chairman Mao, and basically means "valiant". She used to live in this flat, but now I gather she lives somewhere smaller and cheaper and rents this out to help put her daughter through fine art at high school. I've met her daughter, she's sweet.
Ever Basic always praised Sister Wang to me, and sure enough she's very good about seeing to problems straight away and getting things done. There's no real reason for her to be so conscientious, I think she's just a nice woman. On Sunday I rang her with a list of small problems I'd come across in the flat, and she came over straight away to help, which wasn't necessary. Kyoko had just moved in and began quite tenaciously lobbying for the landlady to buy us a microwave - I'm not sure that's fair considering Sister Wang already pays the heating bill, the flat's generally in fair condition and Sister Wang doesn't have a microwave herself. I think she kind of overdid it. I went to Sister Wang's city workplace yesterday to pick up a telephone and some curtains, and she was all sisterly friendliness. She likes me. She said, if you're paying the phone bill, what if that Japanese person wants to use the phone too? I laughed and said we'll sort that out ourselves, don't worry about her. Sister Wang said, I don't like her. I laughed and said, I know. Of course it seems rum to a Chinese landlady for rich young foreigners to be badgering her for extras. Kyoko's fine, though. I made it known at school that I was looking for a Japanese or Korean flatmate, and she was the first one who took it up. She seems sensible and friendly. Sister Wang doesn't have to like her. We can make a "good cop, bad cop" team.
Today I also met Sister Wang's younger brother, who went with me to the police station to register my new address. To the woman at the desk in a little back room with the sun streaming in from the south, "Elder Sister, hello, trouble you to handle this for us, this foreigner needs to register again, we need one of those booklets for registering foreigners." "Not a bother. What country?" "New Zea - " "Ireland." "Ah dui, Ireland. This room you've got's all right, Elder Sister." "Ah yeah, it's not too bad. Got an electric heater." Me: "Must be cold some days. Today's fairly warm anyway, though." "That's right. Hey, you speak pretty good Chinese. That's twenty kuai, and just go in the main door to register. Look for Wang, or the female officer." "Okay, thanks." "Give her twenty kuai." "Okay." "Bye now, walk slowly." "Thanks, thanks, bye."
