The biggest problem with these courtyard houses is that there aren’t any. Well none that I can afford anyway. If you want anything decent, you’re looking at upwards of a couple thousand US dollars a month. These ones are renovated with all the traditional woodwork, painting, parking and a couple of pygmies that will pull you in a rickshaw to the Peking Opera.

“BUT THAT’S NOT TRUE, there’s cheap ones out there!” I can hear some of you seasoned Beijing expats whining. Correct. Just like a microcosm of all that is China, the courtyards come in super rich, or super poor styles. The middle class is still confused, insecure and not sure what it is or wants to be. I saw several places that were just slightly within my price range (when they know it’s a foreigner looking for them the price gets jacked), but they were more than just fixer uppers. I mean, most of them looked to be modified by someone who had played Rubik’s cube their whole life but was never able to solve it. Just a complete jumble of rooms that made no sense. Most of the courtyards had been built over with concrete structures that looked fortified enough to withstand airborne attacks.

Often a few of the inner rooms still had some old geezers milling about with their pet pigeons that probably wouldn’t have been down with a bunch of western dudes getting buck wild to rock music and some floozies in the courtyard. But maybe they would have. I guess that will remain one of the great mysteries of our time.

One thing we couldn’t get drilled into the heads of the scheming property agents that were showing us places was that the whole point of having a courtyard home is the fucking courtyard. Why would I want to live in one of these things just for the sake of living here? If not for the courtyard, what is this magic “culture” they keep referring to that makes these places so special? The street cred, so I can be cool and say I lived for a year in one of these damn places and wore a mao suit as pajamas!? Do they think I want to live in this dilapidated area so that I can squat to take a shit next to someone else just to savor the hutong life? Do you think I want to navigate my way severely intoxicated through a series of impassible, unlit, alleyways that have random wires looking to get into the decapitation game just to get home from the bar?

I suppose you could renovate them, make em all nice and old school, get rid of those squatter toilets with the bucket of water for the flush, make the geezers hit the bricks and hook it up some pygmies to do your bidding. I also suppose your landlord would then quickly find a way to void your rental contract, make you hit the bricks, jack the rent, and charge a couple grand for it just like all the other renovated ones.

Yeah yeah yeah, history and architecture is fantastic and all, but honestly, most of them have been scarred beyond recognition. The ones that have been properly renovated are stuck in disneyesque tourist zones that require you to wade through tons of “oh isn’t this quaint” retards snapping photos of shops selling overpriced gimmicky bullshit that has nothing to do with the hutong life, culture or even common sense.

Well my solution to the ordeal was to say fuck the courtyards, fuck the hutongs, fuck the scheming agents and landlords and most of all fuck Beijing. If I’m going to get shanghaied might as well do it…in Shanghai! Longtangs here I come!

Agents can be useful for a bunch of things. They have data on where tons of apartments are for rent, and can find them faster than you would on your own. There are indeed websites designed to search for rentals, but in my experience they are poorly designed. A good agent should argue on your behalf, mostly because they want to close the deal and get their fee, but also because you are the customer as opposed to the landlord. If you make your requirements clear to them, they will usually see to it that they’re met, or come close to it. Finally, they’ll do all the paperwork, and have contracts pre-written that are mostly in-favor of the tenant.

My strategy to finding the apartment I want is to first find out where I want to live. Then I pick the exact building that I want to be in. With the rental and real estate market overly saturated right now thanks to the economocalypse, chances are there will be at least one unit available in that building. The agent should be able to get you in there to take a look, and if you like it away you go. If you do need heed this advice and pick just some area, or even worse an entire district, you will wind up with some massive apartment on the verge of complete and total failure, with neighbors above, below and side to side who will all be doing renovations involving high volume power tools only at times you have to catch an early flight, are hung-over, or both.

Using this technique recently netted me a decent apartment. First inspection was good. The forties something landlord guy offered me good price, and was going to supply me with all the furniture I needed. Little did I know, despite his ownership of the place, the real owners were his elderly parents who materialized like wraiths at the second showing. It’s funny how friendly they were at first, only to become hostile banshees later on.

After heading back to the real estate office to sign the contract, the demons began to reveal themselves. First, they wanted the deposit to be a number that was perfect sounding to them, so no fours, 250’s or any other unlucky combinations. Of course I agreed, not wanting to offend their foolish but perfectly normal superstitions. Their son took a while to show up, and by the time he did I got the agent to explain that I only wanted to pay two six month terms instead of upfront for the whole year. So much can happen in a year, and if for some reason I need to make like a banana and get the fuck out, I don’t want to lose an excess of rent. Not to mention, the landlord would get to keep the deposit, thus affording him time to find a new tenant. The guy’s mom was already starting to pull the strings, and said was saying this was no good, unlucky, and would end badly. The landlord then offered that the deposit should be higher that what it was, I agreed that this was an acceptable offer. But before anyone could sign the contract, his mom suddenly started shrieking that there was no way he could rent it out, this was totally unacceptable, and that he should find someone else. Just moments early she had been signing praises about how good foreigners were to rent to.

The sheer noise she was making, and the repetitive yelling was not unlike that of a little child complaining about not wanting to eat her broccoli or something. It was just absurd to me that someone of that age would act like that. It’s really hard for me to even put it in words what the situation was like but I just sat there, and listened to this old witch go on. While I couldn’t make out everything she was saying, I did hear a number of slurs leave that old wrinkled cake hole. Finally the guy got up and said that he couldn’t sign it, and they left, without apologizing, but instead the mother continuing on about how what a horrible circumstance it would have been.

Despite this rather unpleasant experience, it was a blessing in disguise. I wouldn’t be stuck with superstitious landlords that probably would have been unreasonable anal goblins. Not to mention, the landlord’s brothers would have been living above and below me, so there very well could have noise complaints, stupid requests to practice English, and the smell of burning flesh of former tenants wafting into my flat.

On my way home in the taxi from this aborted contract signing I got a call from my agent about another landlord wanting to meet about another unit like the one I wanted in the same building the next day. Within 12 hours, I had a new contract, the landlord was in her early forties, was totally cool with six month payments and basically had no qualms whatsoever. Oh yeah and the price was more than 10% lower.

Landlords really are a completely random variable. Renting a new apartment is a lot like playing Russian roulette. Except in the empty chambers, you get delightful chambers to sleep in, while the ones that are full leave a nice gaping hole in your head with your brains oozing on the floor in a big mess that you will have to clean up in order to try and get your rental deposit back.

It’s about that time of year again, where my rent is nearing expiration and I have to find a new home to live. I never bother resigning a new contract because I always feel like I can do better than what I’ve got, which so far, I have. Not to mention I quite enjoy looking for new apartments here.

Who doesn’t love a real estate agency, where within 2 minutes of walking in the door, they have some landlords bringing you up to take a look at an apartment? Never mind appointments, introductions, names or telling the agents what I was looking for. They just whisked me right up to some random dwelling. That was a stone’s throw away from the agency. As luck would have it, that turned out to be the best place of the day.

The landlords are always so into it, it’s great. They quote you a price, and then immediately say, but if you take it right away we’ll lower the price even more. The first ones I had where a young middle-aged couple. They were nice, perhaps a bit too nice. The guy looked like he had recently gotten facelift, and perhaps addicted to cocaine. He was always wide eyed and had this enormously open smile that I thought he might offer as an extra room in the flat.

After giving the place a good once over, we sat down in the kitchen to go over the details. Immediately the guy offered us all a smoke. Being a non-smoker, I politely refuted, at which point he pulled a half empty bottle of cola out of a drawer(?) and offered it to me instead. I was going to say that I only drank water and booze, but I was afraid of what substance he would pull out of his sleeve next, so I switched the conversation back to the topic at hand.

Even when I’m speaking English, I have a hard enough time with these awkward situations. It’s because I often feel pigeonholed. I like the place or thing that I’m looking at, but obviously I’m not going make big commitments right away. They seemed to think I was ready to sign a contract right after 5 minutes in the place. Really, who rents the first house that’s shown to them? As I tried to be as polite as I could for coming down on short notice to show me their apartment, I couldn’t help but see a sudden dejected look in their eyes when I told them I needed think things over and look around. It was like they just found out that their puppy was beheaded by pirates. Feline mutant pirates. They could watch the highlights on the news at 11. It was back to the drawing board at the agency.

It’s hard enough for me alone to figure out what I want in terms of a place to live, but then to have to explain it in another language to someone who has no concept of my utility-value system is almost a lost cause. Almost. But as it turns out, I still got to have fun practicing my real estate terms in Chinese all day while cruising around in a QQ.

First time in a QQ

As I was being ferried around looking at new and well…not so new apartments, I had the opportunity of having my first ride in a QQ. To those of you from countries where vehicle safety standards exist, the QQ is a diminutive little car that’s ubiquitous here. They’re powered by engines packing a whopping 51 or 67 horsepower, and are the same size as a large bathtub. I have to say I came away impressed. For a car so small, it managed to zip around without too much effort (so there were some points where it almost stalled, more than likely due to the driver) with 4 guys piled inside of it. Speaking of the interior, clearly the Ringling Brothers played a role in its design process, because everyone including myself had ample leg room. The only problem I could really feel was the flimsy construction of the doors, the walls, and… pretty much the whole car. If you get in an accident in one of these things, forget about an ambulance coming to pick you up, you’re leaving in a Hurst. SUVs would fly by us, and it felt like I was on the 401 in a Camry being passed by a Mach trucks. Despite these small faults, it was fun. Just don’t expect me and my homies to be rolling around in one anytime ever.

Despite 5 hours of visiting various apartments and offices in different states of neglect my quest continues. Will I find that royal habitat, fit for a golden goose? Or will I be pulled into the next landlord’s massively gaping mouth to the far side of another dimension?

Most people are aware that tap water in most developing countries is not something you would want to wash down your vodka with. This of course applies here as well. However it appears that by the mandate of heaven, measures are being taken to make the local brew less of a potent potable. In regards to this, there is ongoing construction outside my domicile wherein streets are being closed, holes are being ripped open, and people are standing around with shovels trying to look busy.

Unfortunately for me, I really had no idea that this was what they were up to until I had returned from my weekend escapade in Changyi (昌邑). I didn’t really shower while I was there, so I was looking forward to removing the bus stench from my skin when with the turn of a faucet I realized that the water was out. I went down to management to find out that there was in fact a notice posted outlining the construction and the time the water would be out from. Rats I thought, the flow wouldn’t be coming back online until 10 in the pm and I had plans. So I decided to just rough it one more day, and get the grime removed the day after.

The next day I spent most of the morning doing laundry that I needed to get done as I was planning on going away again soon and wash up a bunch of dishes that had been cultivating new and exciting forms of life. After this I went to have my much sought after shower.

The water was the perfect temperature as I lathered a generous helping of ITOUEN1899 shampoo and WALCH body wash into my hair and skin. I was thinking about cleaning up nice as I had to be in a photo shoot for something later in the day. All of the sudden, as can be predicted in such an all too familiar scenario, the water cut. I had just finished covering myself completely in soap. The water couldn’t have cut off at a more opportune time. It was as if someone with a sick perversion for soap suds and super-fit men had installed a camera in my bathroom and was just waiting to flip the switch. I waited, and waited. The water refused to show itself. After about an hour, the soap had formed a sticky dry paste over my body and I was able to put on clothes to see what the hell was going on. I went down to see if there was a new sign up detailing more outages. Much to my dismay, the notice didn’t exist.

I returned to up to my room to see if by chance the water had turned back on. No dice. So I went to my computer to write this ridiculous story and read a story about a Japanese host and his zany antics in the male host bars. By now, the acidity of the dried up soap that had seeped into my skin was starting to give a burning sensation on my face, which in all likelihood would not bode well for future blemishes. Back to the bathroom, to try once more, I found the shower head sputtering around on the floor like a headless goose. Finally water started to emerge. But to my dismay, this was what it looked like:

Not exactly tempting.

There were moments where I was close to grabbing the water cooler bottle from the machine and somehow figuring away to turn that into a makeshift shower, just so that I could get the crap off my face. I guess a little clean water is just too damn much to ask for.

After about 20 minutes, and me drawing up schematics to tube water from my water cooler into the shower using straws and duct tape the water came blasting back to life. I got in there faster than an obese person rolling down a hill and cleaned off the rotten suds as fast as I’ve ever done to try and avoid another blue-out.

So for those keeping track, I now have had water in my apartment when I definitely don’t want it, and haven’t been able to get water when I needed it most. This is in a building and neighborhood that was built 7 years ago. I’m scared to think of what goes on in the old commie blocks that were built 50 years ago. I would imagine it being like living in one of those air chambers the lottery number balls are drawn from. Instead of having the numbers, every result would be some kind of weird problem with the room, like water, electricity, rodents, and stray wrecking balls. Good thing I don’t gamble.

My less than stellar Saturday morning sleep was destroyed by a constant dripping sound. At first I got up to go to the bathroom, as normal in such situations. Then when I was dazedly walking back to my room, I noticed a long wet tear in my ceiling with a few heavy dripping spots at the one end. At first I was obviously irritated, mostly because I knew that this tear in my ceiling was actually a large bovine, who had suddenly materialized in my apartment and taken a nice big steaming shit on my lap. So I went upstairs to see what the hell was going on.

It was 9 am. The first doorbell was met with the typical moaning of unintelligible Chinese behind a still shut door. The door didn’t open, but I heard the second door close. I definitely woke the guy up, but because he didn’t have the common courtesy (in China yeah right!!) to open the door, I gave him an assault of the sonic variety courtesy of the ridiculously deafening doorbells that all the apartments in the building are equipped with. After that he did open the door and I tried to explain what was going on in my tired Chinese. As was expected, he had no idea, didn’t care, or both, because to his freshly woken knowledge there was no leaks on his floor, and he wasn’t running any water. I apologized and went to inform the building management, who seem to be open even on Saturday mornings.

Too bad for the prick upstairs because the security guard came up to check things out and went to the guy’s apartment that was directly over mine. Again he was woken, this time his wife was there talking, and a nice little heated exchange opened up. The laughing that occurred at the end of the exchange informed me that nothing was going to happen at this point.

The security guard disappeared back down to the management office, and I went to call my landlord so she could get on it ASAP. Luckily for me, my landlord, despite being a five foot tall middle aged lady, transforms into the terminator when it comes to any issue that puts her prized investment into jeopardy. She would be over in one hour I was told.

I highly doubt that it was someone who left their water on or something dumb like that. The most probable culprit was the absolutely piss poor quality that goes into Chinese buildings. Really, what can you expect when you pay your workers $50 a month, or sometimes nothing at all! During my travels throughout the country I’d have to say 75% of the hotels I’ve stayed in have had pipes burst while I was staying there. I’ve only been to about 5 hotels, and only 3 of them had leaks, so that statistic really only reveals that I’m a horrible mathematician, but still.

My landlord arrived 30 minutes after I called, and proceeded to go upstairs to see what the problem was, and back down management to see what was being done about it. Eventually a large congregation of people formed outside my door, the penisface from upstairs and his wife, my landlord, the building manager, the janitor, the security guy, and some other random people who apparently had nothing better on a saturday morning than take a peek into the foreigner’s room. After about 15 minutes of high speed discussion I couldn’t understand, everyone left except my landlord, who then explained that know one actually knows where the water was coming from, and there was nothing we could do about it right now. She did however give me the sick satisfaction of knowing that the dink from upstairs’ place was actually hit pretty hard, and it was coming from somewhere in the vicinity of his water heater. Finally she made sure that there wasn’t any other leaks or problems and told me not to worry about it, because it wasn’t my problem. That was good enough for me, because as long as I didn’t have to deal with anything else that morning I had more important affairs to attend, namely getting back to my dream where my money printing factory was about to open up. I was incredibly lucky however that the leak didn’t hit the second bedroom with all my computer tools in it, or there’d be hell to pay. Now I’ll have to use protection.

The great thing about all this, is that I can be assured there will now be an incessant stream of construction noise coming from above me trying to solve the problem. Which is great really, because I was getting unnerved with all the peace and quiet I had to deal with after the other people above me just recently finished tearing out their tiles and putting in hardwood flooring.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a factory opening to attend to.