Jottings from the Granite Studio

There is a funny post over at Danwei (thanks to TPD for the link) on the perils of apartment hunting in the capital city that made me nostalgic for my past real estate exploits and a bit nervous of future ones. The last time I went apartment shopping in Beijing was in the summer of SARS. That June, with many foreigners back in their home countries and landlords a bit desperate, I managed to score a nice new apartment in a very old Hutong. It was in a funky old alley between the Drum Tower and Hou Hai, where, according to my neighbors, Kang Sheng had lived and done his business back in the bad old days. The offered rent (including furniture and electronics) was so low that I felt compelled to ask the landlady if the apartment was free because the last tenant had suffered from a severe case of ‘deadness.’

“No,” she said slowly.

I loved the place and I figured that if SARS was going to get me it would have done so by now. I accepted her answer and moved in the next day. Over time, I learned that I was the only foreigner in the complex or living on the hutong. This situation, less and less likely these days, was strange enough even then to suggest that perhaps there might be a reason. I asked the landlady if I should register with the local police.

“No,” she said slowly.

At this, I suggested we wander down the hutong and pay them a visit. Killer respiratory illnesses are one thing, the Chinese fetish for paperwork is another.

“Okay,” she said. “But tell them you are not paying rent. We are just friends.”

I played along with this tax dodge and went to register: an unnecessary step, according to my expat friends and my landlady, but I like keeping things legal. (Um, most of the time.)

My life proceeded uninterrupted, minus the occasional “Water fees” people and other associated baksheesh collectors. I came to feel that if the locals were throwing a big Hutong Hopscotch Hootenanny and needed a budget, they just went and hit up the Big Dumb White Dude.

One day, two police came to my door. They asked in Chinese to see my passport and papers. I gave them a big blank look that said, “Me Foreigner. Me No Understand” and a big smile. They asked again. I told them in broken and heavily accented Chinese that, “I am American. How are you?” I just kept repeating it. Over and over and over again. I figured, hell, if the Chinese can play this game, why can’t I? They left.

Three days later they were back. This time with a posse and somebody’s cousin who spoke English. YJ was over that day, and so we invited them all in and made them some tea.

In the kitchen, YJ whispered to me, “Do you want me to help?”

“No,” I replied. “I think the best thing for you to do is to sit in the corner and try to look Korean.”

In the end it was all very civil. I had the papers (because I had gone to the police station in the first place) and much to my relieved amazement there were no expensive ‘irregularities’ in the paperwork to be ironed out.

I never figured out why they came. Maybe YJ coming and going between PKU and our little hutong had tripped the neighborhood lao tai tai’s morality nerve (though given that the predominant industry of a neighboring street was ‘hairdressing,’ that nerve must have accumulated quite a callous.) Perhaps it was the time my buddies and I played stickball in the hutong.

It was a funky little place and we miss it. They tore down the surrounding street and hutongs to put up more complexes like the one in which we lived. You gotta figure that if a lao wai moves into your neighborhood, it’s a sure sign that gentrification is coming. It’s like we’re walking, talking ‘Pottery Barns.’

Now we’re looking for a new place in Beijing but with YJ in Bordeaux until November and me stuck in California until December (plus our fabulous grad student budgets), I’m not sure what we’ll get. But I’m sure the Hutong Hopscotch Hootenanny planning committee will be there. Waiting.