Living Conditions in Fuyang

A lot of friends and family have been asking how our living conditions are. The answer is that they are not that different from apartment living at home! I'll tell you a little about where we live.

We live in a high-rise apartment building next to the school compound. The school either rents or owns the bottom 5 floors. The rest (it's 21 floors) are apartments for other Fuyang residents. We live on the fifth floor. The front of the building faces the street. The back of the building faces the school. We have 4 elevators to choose from!

The fifth floor is a designated "foreign teachers" floor. I think the school plans to bring in more teachers in the future. Right now, there are only 3 couples; us, Spencer and Andi (from Utah), and Jarvis and Larissa (from LA). The other 10 or so apartments are vacant! We have a one bedroom apartment. It's fairly small; probably about 500 square feet. We have a dining room, bedroom, computer alcove (not really a room... it's pretty small), bathroom, and kitchen. Lets start with the bathroom.

The bathroom has a western-style toilet (yay for sitting down!), a pedestal sink, and a standing glass shower. This is special in China; most bathrooms don't have anything enclosing the shower. You just mop the whole bathroom after a shower!

The dining room is just that; wood-looking linolium and a table with 4 chairs. We also have a water boiler in there. You can't drink water in China without boiling it. We just stick a big water bottle on top, and pull the lever, and it's boiling hot! We don't have a living room; the dining room is actually plenty big enough for a couch and end tables. One of our neighbors is buying a new couch, so we might be inheriting one very soon.

The kitchen is very small; we get three meals a day free in the school canteen 5 days a week, so we don't cook much. A small freezer/fridge (VERY small), 1 burner gas stove, a microwave, some cupboards, and a sink. Tile floor :)

The computer alcove; a window connecting into the kitchen and another connecting to outside. A small desk and chair. Room for shoes!!!

Bedroom: Queen sized bed and two nightstands. A wall unit with two small wardobes, drawers, room for our tv (it's pretty big!), and space on top for our luggage. It's a small room, but works just fine. The beds in China are rock hard; but we've found a mattress pad and are now getting along nicely.

The only thing I don't like about the apartment is that right outside the window is a big ledge that accumulates "things". People often hang laundry out of their windows, and it falls. It lands under our window. Random socks, underwear, trash, etc. And rain. I think this summer might be stinky!

There are small differences; there is no central heat or air. We have a wall unit in the bedroom that works fine. The bathroom has a water heater we need to turn on before showers. There is a laundry room for the three couples (an empty apartment; we have 1 washer, 1 dryer, and racks to hang drying clothes). A dryer is a novelty in China; it takes 4 hours to dry a load, but comes in handy in a pinch!