When I first arrived in my apartment in Jiaxing, I thought it was cute and I really liked it. It had hard wood floors, an outdoor porch, and a guest bedroom. I felt pretty blessed compared to my last apartment that had no insulation, 70s carpet, and was on the side of a hill I had to climb during winter (don't get me wrong, it was nice but not brand new nice like my Chinese apartment).
Then I noticed things that were a little off about my apartment. The floor boards didn't meet the wall in some places, the dry wall flaked off very easily, and where my shower starts and the rest of the bathroom begins is not a thing. My shower drain is literally right beside the tiolet. My washer is also in the bathroom and hanging above that are drying racks for clothes. There are no such things as dryers in most countries besides the USA. In my living room, there was a giant hole in my wall that I plugged up with a yogurt cup. Not to mention that my co-workers, who lived in the same apartment complex, had completely different looking styles than me. One of my co-workers had a fully furnished kitchen with beautiful cabinets and I literally have one gas stove, one small fridge, and cabinets where the bottom of the cabinet was the same as the floor with the bonus of no shelves.
What is up with this weirdness? I learned that every apartment and house that you buy in China comes bare bones if it is new. You buy an apartment that is just concrete, dry wall, and places for plumbing and electricity. The buyer has to install everything from the floors, showers, tubs, and kitchen units. The reason why my apartment is drastically different from my co-worker's place is because they were built by two different families with very different budgets. My boards didn't meet my walls because the last people to own my apartment built them badly and they probably couldn't afford to make a nice renovations while her family was rich and could afford to make her apartment nice.
It turns out that A/C and heat is not built into apartments and houses here. You install them as seperate units so the holes in the walls are meant for the exhaust tubes. My apartment has a heater and A/C unit combined in one device and is installed in both bedrooms but nowhere else in the house. My living room gets freezing cold so I bought a space heater for it.
Many bathrooms in China are squat tiolets and not western tiolets (which I love dearly). The squat tiolet serves as a drain for the shower so many bathrooms in China are like mine, where the shower and tiolet are side by side. However, my western tiolet can't serve as drain so it is right beside a drain.
My furniture came with my apartment and it is not too bad. In fact, I got the best couch out of my co-workers and I have a TV which one of my co-workers does not have. I was glad I didn't have to go through buying furniture in a new country as well. My only complaint is that my bed is rock hard and the springs can 100% be felt. I thought I could get used to it over time but I really can't. I just ordered a foam mattress padding to help me out. When I asked if everyone's mattress was like mine, it turns out they are. The reason is that people literally sleep on the floor here. THE FLOOR. I knew that in Japan they had a mat they roll out and slept on and they were chill with it but the Chinese are even more hard core. The Chinese roll out bamboo leaves to sleep on the ground if it is hot but mostly it is just them lying on the cold hard ground (cue Taylor Swift). Mattresses are seen as a western invention and if people even do have a mattress, it will be as firm as the ground you walk on.
Hotel mattresses are very comfy compared to the apartment mattresses, probably because hotels have guests from countries where sleeping is actually nice to do. I know I sound very bitter about this but it is because in six months I have not grown accustomed to my mattress and in fact last night I was so achy from my bed that I considered going to sleep on the ground because it might be more comfortable.
Even in restaurants, hotels, or stores I notice that they have little issuess. There is exposed wire, floors don't meet the wall, or the windows have cracks so air blows in. In China, I have seen apartment buildings go up in a matter of months which is incredibly fast but I have a pretty good guess that they are not super well made.
It is a little sad but a few people have asked me if the houses in America are really "that" big, have front yards, and can last for years. When I told them that my dad's house had a basement, five bedrooms, and a front and back yard they were amazed. To me, these are things that are just standard with getting a house but in China, for many middle class people, what I have always lived in is a luxury. I guess you never know what you have, until you compare it with someone else.
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