Pulp Fiction and Apartment Hunting in Beijing

Ed note: I’ve posted this a couple of times before.  It’s one of my favorites.  Just know, in my defense, that I was pretty much apoplectic when I wrote this and I think it kinda shows.  Anyway, have a laugh at my expense and enjoy, I’ll be back posting new material very soon.

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Yeah, this post is a little out of character and a bit too long but it’s….cathartic.

YJ and I just spent four days in Beijing apartment-hunting. It did not go well. After trying to decide between two apartments (the cozy love nest or the mack daddy shack) we decided to stall a bit and look some more. One of our agents, Miriam, called us on Saturday, the day we were to leave, with news of a great apartment that would be perfect for us. The following series of events takes place over the course of 24 hours and is so banal and yet so twisted and stupefying that I thought I would let the master, Quentin Tarantino, take a crack at scripting what took place:

I’m American, honey. Our names don’t mean shit.

Our agent Miriam was wonderful, sweet, and honest which meant she was a really good person and totally unqualified to work in the Chinese real estate market. Her default expression in conflict/negotiation situations could only be described as “Rabbit versus Mack truck.” She also had the annoyingly common habit of asking YJ questions about me in the third person. This after we had long established on the phone and in person that I spoke Chinese AND that she spoke English. “What is his name, again?” “Where is he from?” Hello? I’m standing right next to you: Big, dumb, white dude, second from the left.

Hamburgers! The cornerstone of any nutritious breakfast!

God I hate McDonald’s but when you’re running from appointment to appointment it’s the only guaranteed “fast” food in the city. The only time we broke this rule was when we ducked into a little jia chang cai place for a quick lunch between meetings. Sure enough, two bowls of noodles took over 40 minutes to make and we were half and hour late for our next appointment. From then on out, it was McD’s all the way. By the end of the weekend I felt like I was carrying Verne Troyer around in my colon.

Normally, both of your sorry asses would be deader than f——-g fried chicken by now, but you happened to pull this shit while I’m in a transitional period so I don’t wanna kill you, I wanna help you.

Before Miriam, we worked with an agent from “Very Large Chinese Agency” and she was great. She was a woman in her late 50s who was…actually both honest AND efficient or maybe she just felt sorry for us. The problem was she had no taste in apartments. She was the one who showed us “Mack Daddy Pad” that I liked, but which YJ said looked like the decorator had been fired from the set of “Boogie Nights.” God bless this particular agent, she’s still calling us with suggestions. In fact, right now, she’s the ONLY agent we’ve worked with in Beijing who is still returning our calls.

Warm… warmer… DIsco.

Saturday afternoon, Miriam calls us about a new apartment near Wangfujing.

“Wangfujing,” I say, “That’s thirty minutes away. I’ll be there in ten.” We walk in and it is perfect: Five minute walk to the archives but off in a quiet hutong with both north and south windows and every inch of the place brand new, all for the same price as some of the older places we looked at in Dongcheng and much less expensive than “Mack Daddy.” We were stoked.

Get it straight, Buster. I’m not here to say please. I’m here to tell you what to do. And if self-preservation is an instinct you possess, you better f——g do it and do it quick. I’m here to help. If my help’s not appreciated, lots of luck, gentlemen.

I like to compliment people on their homes, pointing out nice features as a way to make our hosts feel more comfortable. DO NOT DO THIS WHEN LOOKING AT APARTMENTS IN BEIJING. Earlier that weekend, Miriam had said, to YJ not me of course, “Every time he says something nice, the price goes up.” Did I listen? Of course not. Why? Did I mention that I am, in fact, an idiot?

Bring out the Gimp.

The landlord was sweet as pie. She was wonderful. Her boyfriend was charming, all smiles, a real modern guy with “Starbucks” latte in hand. And then in walked “Auntie.” She was a dumpy, troll-like figure with a sour, peasant visage which betrayed no sense of warmth or mirth. It was quite a miracle when I saw her face actually begin to brighten into a grin when she met me…if only I knew.

Zed? Maynard. Spider just caught a couple of flies.

YJ and I looked at each other and said this is the place. Smiles all around. I turned around to tell YJ to go into the bedroom, call our other house agent and to tell her that we’d found a place and she wouldn’t need to hold the other apartment any longer. Just then I felt a tingling sensation that ran from the back of my neck down to my toes. It was the old lady: mentally greasing up my backside…and aiming for penetration.

Well, let’s not start sucking each other’s d–ks quite yet

First of all the apartment lacked some of the basics, and when we suggested that these would need to be provided, the old lady began to fidget and twitch at our unreasonable demands for things like a refrigerator and to turn on the water. It was a new apartment and hadn’t been lived in yet so it had a kind of “clean but unfinished feel” that should have made us more cautious. Miriam said that she could take care of these details later and that we should leave. I should have listened. Actually, I should have taken Miriam, shaken her, and asked questions like, “Do you think we can get this place?” and “Do they actually OWN the apartment?” But I didn’t. Yeah, I know, I am an idiot.

English, motherf—-r! Do you speak it?!

I’ve decided that it is in my best interest to never use Chinese in any situation involving negotiations. I think it’s better if I just sit there and pretend to be a Wookie. I have absolute faith that if YJ and the agent had gone into another room and left me standing there with a dumb grin on my face, the auntie and her family would have gone on talking about how best to screw the idiot foreigner and his hai gui girlfriend. This would have saved us a lot of trouble. But no, I like to show off that I can speak Chinese by saying helpful things like “Wow, this place is really convenient to where I do my research” and “What great light! I really want to live here.” (Sound of forehead hitting desk over and over again.)

I Love You Pumpkin. I love you, too Honey Bunny.

Finally, Miriam hurried us out of the apartment and down the stairs. Not good times, bad times. We had bailed on two apartments we liked and which were already in the bag for a really cool place, the deal for which fell apart about 75 seconds after we said we would take it. YJ and I went to the Novotel Hotel to drown our despondency. As I was giving my despondency its second drowning in five minutes, Miriam called. The landlords had agreed to all of our requests (for a fridge, a television, a washing machine, etc).  It was like winning PowerBall. We had successfully negotiated a sweet apartment at a sweet price only 30 minutes after we had practically been tossed from the building by the landlord’s aunt.They didn’t even bother with a counter-offer on the rent, all we had to do was meet with them in the morning. We changed our train, booked a second night at the Home Inn, and ordered another round to celebrate.

Now, anyone who has done business in China (or seen the movie Goodfellas) knew what was about to happen. Of course they agreed; they never had any intention of renting us the apartment. They’d have agreed, in principle, to letting us plant the auntie in a tub of loam as a Christmas tree…‘coz they knew they were never going to see us again. Oh yeah, did I mention they neglected to set a time to meet us in the morning? Yeah. I know.

“Does Marcellus Wallace look like a bitch?” “No.” “Then WHY are you trying to f–k him like a bitch, Brett?”

The next morning we call Miriam to find out when we can sign the papers and she tells us that the morning will be “inconvenient” because the Aunt is in the hospital. I’m not buying this so I call back.  Actually the apartment certificate (proving that they really own and can rent the place) is in the uncle’s house, but when they went to the uncle’s house the aunt was sick so they couldn’t get it. Three hours later, they said that they couldn’t provide the apartment certificate because it is not convenient today. By the second call, I knew we were getting screwed around. By the third, I asked Miriam point blank: “We’re not getting this apartment, right?” Miriam: “Probably not.” Standing right at the top of Wangfujing I let fly with a loud exclamation that rhymes vaguely with “another trucker.” YJ tells curious passers-by that I am a lao wai interested in the Chinese practice of lian sangzi.

Yeah, we cool. Two things. Don’t tell nobody about this. This shit is between me, you, and Mr. Soon-To-Be-Living-The-Rest-of-His-Short-Ass-Life-In-Agonizing-Pain Rapist here. It ain’t nobody else’s business. Two: you leave town tonight, right now. And when you’re gone, you stay gone, or you be gone.

After I had raged on the sidewalk for a few moments, I slumped to the curb and realized that nothing could be done. Yes, the old woman and her ‘nice’ relatives were lying and conniving peasants. Somehow, YJ and I had convinced ourselves that since Beijing was so much cleaner and had a decent bagel place with prompt friendly service and everything that things had changed. No, not really. The three of them never had any intention of giving us such a good deal, certainly not with a lao wai involved, but neither were they ever going to lose face and actually tell us this. Why bother? Just string us along like the dupes we are. It was, in fact, almost an epiphany. So I picked myself up, wiped the spittle off of my clothes, and we took a taxi to that center of Zen-like relaxation: The Beijing Train Station on the Sunday before Chunjie. Oh yeah, we’re coming right back in two weeks to do it all over again. Pretty smart, eh? Yeah, pretty smart.

Originally Posted February 13, 2007.

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Epilogue: We actually moved into “mack daddy” apartment two weeks later and lived there for 18 months before moving to a small house in the hutong.  The lesson as always, well…you know.