House-Hunting in Chengdu

My husband Mark and I will be moving to Chengdu, the capital of Sechuan in mid-September, 2008. I have set up this blog to record my observations of life in China, in particular, the expatriate experience.

We have lived in Lafayette, Louisiana since 2003. We will miss our friends in Louisiana - and elsewhere - and hope that this blog will help keep then informed about our new life.

Chengdu, China: Pre-assignment Trip
Ruth 27 July 2008

July 19, 2008

We flew First Class on United all the way to Beijing. The seats on the San Francisco-Beijing leg reclined all the way, so I was actually able to get some sleep. We arrived in Beijing on time without incident.

The Beijing Airport turned out to be easy to negotiate - very clean and modern. We spent most of our four hours there in the First class lounge, where we had coffee and a variety of snack foods. I spent the time, as well as much of the time on the plane, studying my books on Chinese characters. For me, the only effective way of learning them is to write them over and over.
Our flight to Chengdu took a lot longer than scheduled. It was slightly over an hour late in leaving. There was an exceptionally heavy storm over Chengdu that evening, so our plane - and many others - flew on to Kunming, a city about an hour's flight to the southeast. We sat on the ground there for about 1 1/2 hours. When they rolled portable stairs up to the plane, I thought we might have to deplane and spend the night there, but instead they brought aboard packages of cookies for everyone.

We finally landed in Chengdu just before 2:00a.m., along with a fair number of other planes that had been similarly diverted. We stopped on an expanse of concrete a long ways from the airport, and we boarded buses to the terminal. There was a cluster of several dozen bicycles parked nearby, belonging to the ground crew. The luggage area was crowded with the people from other planes as well as ours, but our luggage eventually arrived. We went out to the public part of the airport, also crowded with people despite the late hour, and were relieved to find a young man holding a sign with Mark's name on it, six hours after we had been scheduled to arrive.

The airport is about 18 kilometers to the southeast of the city. I was relieved to see that most of the street signs were in pinyin as well as in Chinese characters. Most of the trip was on nearly deserted highways. We were grateful to finally arrive at the Shangri-La Hotel and go to bed.

July 20 2008

The Shangri-La Hotel is ostentatiously luxurious - not really my style but fun for a while. Our room on the 32nd floor has a good view of the city - a river to one side, lots of high rises, including many under construction with cranes. The city is booming with a 10% growth rate. There are still a few areas with low buildings, but most of those are being replaced by denser housing. I'm currently sitting in the Horizon Club on the 36th floor, where we get complementary breakfast and a "Happy Hour" from 5:00 to 7:00 that has enough snack foods - fruit, dim sum, sushi, tiny plates with artistically arranged bites of fancy meats, bite-size servings of cheesecake and mousse.

At 9:00am we met our housing consultant, Bessy. She is probably in her mid-20s, but looks like a teenager with her long hair in a shag cut, snug T-shirt with a slightly bared midriff, and low-riding jeans. Another young woman, Amy (pronounced with a short a) joined us; she is in training for the real estate company, in from another city for a month of training. It was a fairly snug fit with the driver and Amy in front, and the two of us and Bessy in the back.

Our first stop was way south of the third ring road to a development called Luxe Hills. It is part of a massive Western-style planned community. Pine Valley, the subdivision we looked at, has small "villas" - stand-alone houses with a narrow border of bushes as a front lawn and with attached garages. The one we saw was tastefully decorated in earth tones with an American-style kitchen, small but luxurious rooms. The furniture was a bit formal for me, but otherwise it looked very livable. It was fully furnished but unoccupied. Mark was amused to find a menorah on the mantle in the living room. The backyard was small and completely landscaped, with a stream-shaped goldfish pond, bridge, two covered areas with tables and chairs, and a fake rock arrangement cutting off the view over a golf-driving range. A large covered patio area had room for the washer and a long counter with an outdoor stove - a good party area.

We drove to a nearby clubhouse which as indoor/outdoor pools, tennis courts, and a restaurant, along with a 10' square model of the development. The community will eventually have a town center with shops, but at this point I would need to drive quite a ways to pick up any groceries. The house we saw was in the "Pine Valley" subdivision; the adjacent subdivision is named "San Ramon", like the city in California.

On the downside, Mark's commute would start out as 40 minutes. Given the amount of development we passed on the way, the commute could easily become 1 1/2 hours within a few years. Living there would be like pretending we weren't really in China, even though most of the people living in the community are Chinese.

Our second stop was a housing compound called Orchard Villa. Like much of the upscale apartments and housing, it is a multi-block area with security gates at all the entrances. When we saw the townhouse there, I didn't realize how rare it would be to have a place with a ground-floor entrance, back yard, and garage. What I noticed first was the contrast with Luxe Hills - garish color combinations, large, ostentatious furniture, and the 42" flat screen TV as the focal point of the living room. The kitchen was small and narrow with a balcony having the washing machine sitting in one corner. From the living room, a long set of stairs ran up to a small landing where there was a 4' door that led to a fairly large square room with a low but livable ceiling – this room would be good for kids or storage. Another long set of stairs led to two guest bedrooms, a study and bathroom. Yet another set of stairs took us to the master bedroom and an exercise room with a leaky roof. On the ground floor, the two-story living room has a white floor and walls, except for a large green rectangle where we might have a fireplace. The wall facing the back was all windows, covered with translucent curtains of an off white that made the light seem yellow. The back yard was overgrown, but a decent size and walled.

We were told that just about everything is negotiable in terms of furniture and remodeling, but the amount that would be needed in this place seemed overwhelming. Besides, I wasn't crazy about having a third-story bedroom.

The next place we saw was a multi-apartment, occupying floors 3-5 of a five-story building. The entrance smelled strongly of food, then we had to walk up two long flights to the front door. The master bedroom was on the fifth floor, along with a "roof garden", an area the size of a wide balcony. The fourth place we visited had the same arrangement, but we liked the compound - China Gardens. Its streets were quite with overhanging trees. Bessy told us that it was very old - at least 6 years old! There was also a very large outdoor pool surround by trees - it looked more like a lake. This same complex also had a multi-apartment in a taller building on floors 9/10/11, reachable by elevator. This one was more to my taste than the others - a decent kitchen and a nice walled roof garden with a covered area for sitting and the washing machine, and large potted trees in the uncovered area. We then went on to another complex to see two more 3/4/5 walkup apartments.

Mark took photos on his digital cameral, but the places stilled blurred in my mind. All of them had various problems, both fixable (horrible furniture, kitchen cabinets with bright orange trim, kitchen count 6" too low), least fixable (master bedroom bathroom with glass walls, wooden tub instead of a shower) to immutable (view of high-rises under construction). Some could be made suitable for Zorro, our cat; others would be a nightmare.

We returned to the hotel, exhausted, in time for happy hour. The view was unusually clear - we could see mountains all along the skyline. Mark's boss, John, who has been there several months, said it was the clearest he had seen. John is fluent in Chinese, having worked in China for five years as a seismologist, and his wife is Chinese.

With such clear weather, it was tempting to go out exploring, but exhaustion won out, and we went to bed early.

Tuesday, July 21

We managed to sleep most of the night without our jetlag kicking in. We ate breakfast at the Horizon Club, then we were off for some more house hunting. First we were taken to a walk-up apartment in Shanghai Gardens, a smaller version of ones we had seen the day before, with a lot of orange in the decor - definitely not for us. We then went on to the Waterfront Apartments, a high-rise apartment complex within easy walking distance of Mark's office. We were shown three top-floor apartments in three separate buildings. We liked the third one best - a better layout, plus the best view - overlooking the river. It is brand new, with no furnishings - white walls, white tile floors in the living room/dining room, light wood floors in the three bedrooms. It occupies the 29th and 30th floors. The general grounds were pleasant, with shaded areas to sit, an outdoor pool with a white sand "beach", and an indoor pool and exercise room.

We then drove south - not quite as far as Luxe Hills - to see a village at Sanli House. It is much more Asian in design than Luxe Hills - bright red door, fish pond in front, but it was tastefully decorated with a lot of livable space. The owner spoke excellent English. When Mark asked if he had lived in the U.S., he replied that he had lived in Britain, but was originally from Malaysia, so we promptly had a lively conversation with him in Indonesian, which is nearly identical to Malaysian. Mark remembered more than I do - I was even rusty on the numbers! Sadly, we had to reject this house because it was too far out, and there was major construction across the road in back of it.

At this point we had to narrow our choice to the top two. We decided to go with the Orchard Villa house - which seemed a lot more attractive in retrospect, and the third apartment at the Waterfront.

We were then taken to Carrefour, a large department store with a supermarket on the ground floor. It had a large variety of fresh fruit and vegetables, tofu, meats, packages of cut up vegetable ready to stir-fry. There were foods to sample - with toothpicks - including pork intestines in a red pepper sauce. We might not find all the foods we are used to here, but we certainly won't starve.

Lunches: On Monday we were taken to a large restaurant along a busy street - clean, fast service, nice but not luxurious - where we had the local versions of kung-pao chicken, sweet and sour pork, cucumber soup, and a few other delicacies - definitely a place I'll go again. On Tuesday we went to the food court area in a brand new shopping center and ate at a place specializing in noodles. We had other dishes as well, but the noodles were very long and hard to eat with chopsticks.

Bessy called to make arrangements for us to see our top two choices again, only to find out that the Orchard Villa house had just been rented to another Chevron family. We needed to chose another, so we settled on the 9th floor apartment at China Gardens. We then revisited our two choices. I could have gone either way, but Mark favored the Waterfront Highrise, so we settled on it. Bessy said she would contact the landlord for a meeting the next morning.

That evening, after a supper of snacks at the Horizon Club, Mark and I took a long walk along the river. There are wide sidewalks on both sides; they were not crowded, but there were still plenty of other people out for a stroll. We were told that these walkways are only a few years old. There has been a great effort to clean up the river, which used to collect all the raw sewage. There's still room for improvement, but it was nonetheless a pleasant experience. Across the street from the Shangri-La is a wide pedestrian bridge. Most of the bridge is taken up by the upscale Bridge Restaurant, which has the traditional pitched roofs. A row of small potted trees separated us from the large windows of the restaurant, where we could see people sitting around large round tables. Across the river we walked past several blocks of open-air restaurants that looked very inviting. We continued on for a way, past a gate where we could actually translate the characters: Sichuan University. Just beyond that, at a bend in the river, is Wanjianglou Park, a large area known for its many kinds of bamboo. We wandered in, but it was getting dark, so we decided to leave it for another time. On the way back, we passed a pavilion where there was music playing and a young woman was doing aerobics on the stage. Over 100 people, mostly young women, but a few older ones at the back, were standing in front of the stage, doing the exercises with her. Bessy later told us that this type of open-air group exercise is fairly common throughout the city.

Wednesday, July 22

On Wednesday morning we walked through the empty apartment at the Waterfront once more, making a furniture wish list. The landlord was out of town, so Bessy would be negotiating with him about the lease and the changes we wanted. We then visited the expat medical area within a large hospital, headed by an English-speaking German doctor. After that Bessy and Amy took us to Jinli Street, an arts and crafts tourist street near a large temple. We saw only one other Westerner, but it was full of Chinese visitors. A long portion of the street is dedicated to food stands, with small shaded tables along the other side of the street. Bessy and Amy bought us a variety of dishes: noodles in a hot pepper sauce (they were so soft that I cut them with my chop sticks with the least amount of pressure), a bowl of soft tofu with unidentifiable ingredients in it, strange vegetable concoctions on sticks, a tofu kebab, a lamb kebab, then sticky rice balls on a stick. There were a couple of more upscale restaurants there as well. The rest of the street had a variety of shops, from cheap tourist items to serious crafts. There were panda bears of all sorts, cockroaches, praying mantises and grasshoppers made out of reeds, candy blown like glass to form rats and pigs, a chop stick store with beautiful gift sets, a silk store with clothes and silk comforters, a shop with carved and painted bamboo items, a shop with some simple but attractive batiks.

Since Bessy would be negotiating for the furniture in our apartment, we wanted to give her some idea of the types we like. We had been told about a large new store, Noble, which has many smaller stores in it for upscale furniture manufacturers. At the entrance we saw a sofa set with so much carved gold-painted wood that it was comical. We told Bessy we definitely didn't want that! Unfortunately, every store there had very distinctive, overpriced furniture, none of which would be to our liking whatever the pricetag. We then went a block away to the Ikea superstore where the designs were much more to our liking. I tried to convey to Bessy that we would like something fairly traditional, but better quality than Ikea.

Although we have settled on a place, there are still many ways that the house deal can fall through. John, who has been waiting several months for his apartment at the Waterfront to be completed, said that housing prices are going up so fast that many investors aren't that interested in actually renting the places out - they can't be bothered when they are making such a large profit on paper. We may end up spending more time at Shangri-La if the apartment isn't ready in time.

After all that walking, I barely made it through another Horizon Club happy hour. We went to bed early and slept till 4:00 AM.

Thursday, July 24

This morning was probably more typical of what we can expect for the weather here. The sun was a red ball dim enough that we could stare right at it. It stayed red well above the horizon until it disappeared into the high bank of clouds. The close-up skyline consisted of high-rises, six of them with construction cranes on top of them. An enormous construction pit just to the left will be a major complex within another year. The further off high-rises were blurred by the fog.

At breakfast we met Wanda and Jerry, who are here from Washington state. Wanda invited me to join her and her friend Doki (whom I had met the day before) for a foot message. Since Mark wanted to go to the office and I had no other plans, I agreed. For 88 yuan ($14) we had a two-hour, full-body [clothes on] massage. It started with soaking, then messaging our feet. We were in a room with four beds, each with our own masseuse. Wanda's driver, Mark, helped me tell mine to avoid the spot on my right foot with the fibroma. It was a pleasant experience and a good chance to talk. We then went on to Pete's Tex-Mex Restaurant for lunch. It would not have been my first choice, but it was a pleasant place to eat a fajita chicken salad - nicely grilled chicken on an essentially iceberg lettuce base, with a glass of fresh, tart lemonade. I spent the afternoon writing this letter. Since we had a heavy afternoon rain, I didn't feel guilty about not being out exploring.

In the evening John and his wife took a total of eight of us out to a fancy Sechuan restaurant. It is a popular place with an immense room filled with tables, but we had a private room with a round table with a lazy susan. Normal supper hours are 6:00-9:00. We arrived about 7:30, and the restaurant had already run out of some of their dishes, but we still had an amazing array of dishes to try, mostly meats - beef, chicken, duck, fish, shrimp; only one vegetable dish, noodles but no rice. We all ate way too much, but it was fun. The other three couples had all been in Nigeria together, so we heard some horror stories. One of the couples had lived in Lafayette for many years until 2003, and plan to retire there. They chose a house in Luxe Hills because they have two dogs with them. I felt a bit guilty that I hadn't been willing to choose the best house for Zorro, but I felt that after years of compromising for the kids, we needed to chose the best location for us.

Friday, July 25

Mark walked to the office this morning; his office will eventually be on several floors of the Shangri-La, but for the present, his company has offices at two different locations. It was about a 15-minute walk. We took an afternoon walk along the river, the same route as on Tuesday, but we also walked through Wanjianglou Park. There are walking paths, with clusters of bamboo along the sides, neatly labeled with their scientific and Chinese names. There is a small lake with paddle boats for rent, and there are a number of tea gardens; each has a pagoda with some indoor seating, then a large shaded area with chairs and tables. Mark and I could imagine it filled with people on a Sunday afternoon. The facilities are old and look well-used, but they are fairly decently maintained.

On the way back we crossed the river at another bridge so we walked back along the north side. The whole river walk area is only a few years old. The river has been considerably rehabilitated from the days when it was basically an open sewer, but it still has a long ways to go. We saw a dead pig floating in the river. There is a color demarcation where a tributary river brings in milky brown water to the darker brown of the main flow. Some areas along the walk had a noticeable sewage smell.

We passed the Waterfront complex, then continued back to the Shangri-La. There is one wide street to cross that's somewhat scary - traffic goes slowly but doesn't stop. We waited for a crowd of pedestrians to gather, then went across with them, still dodging the motorcycles. I suppose we'll get used to it. Mark will be doing it twice a day.

We were sweaty and tired when we returned a couple of hours later. I took a shower and rested a bit before we went up to our final Happy Hour. We talked about the Waterfront with John, who has also selected an apartment there. (He is waiting for the installation of curtains on the all-glass walls of the master bedroom bathroom, a feature our apartment does not have. His is also on the 29th floor, one building over. Since John worked as a seismologist for five years, I feel fairly confident with his assessment that there is little earthquake risk to the apartments. John is also bringing a piano - a baby grand. His comment on the piano – was to go ahead and bring it. If it won't fit in the elevator, hire some men to take it up 29 flights of stairs. I have mixed feelings about this, both for the men and for the piano.

Saturday, July 26

Lesson learned: always reconfirm international flights. When we arrived at the Chengdu airport at 6:30 a.m., the woman at the counter told us that our flight had been canceled. She took our passports and left for about 20 minutes, then came back with tickets for us of an 8:50am flight to Shanghai, one hour later than our original one. We would have to pick up our luggage in Shanghai and transfer it to the next flight ourselves.

We got to experience the First Class Lounge in Chengdu, a single narrow room filled with clusters of low tables surrounded by carved wooden chairs with inlaid mother-or-pearl designs in the back and on the armrests. They had red brocade cushions. There were a couple of computers available. I tried sending an email out using Mark's gmail account, but it didn't seem to go. I also looked up our flight and saw that we had been rebooked on a considerably later flight going through Chicago rather than San Francisco; the women at the counter had neglected to inform us of this change. We would now be getting back to Houston about midnight instead of 5:00pm.

Shanghai has a large, new attractive airport with a lot of windows. We would have missed our original flight - it closed just as we arrived, so we had four hours to spend in yet another first class lounge. It had the most modern toilets I have ever experienced. As I opened the stall door, the toilet lid went slowly up. There was a panel where I could decide to flush, clean front, clean rear with pulsating or oscillating flow. I opted for the flush. The lounge itself was on the second floor overlooking our gate - very light and airy.

The flight to Chicago went fairly quickly. I watched the movie Persepolis (the graphic autobiographical story of a girl from Iran), then slept for most of the way. Immigration and Customs went smoothly; the longest part was waiting for our luggage. We got to experience the Chicago Red Carpet lounge (definitely a few stars below the others we had gone to - its cappuccino machine dispenses the frothly sweet powdered drink that is only vaguely reminiscent of real coffee). Our flight was delayed another 1 1/2 hours, so it was 2:00am Sunday 27, 2008 by the time we retrieved the car from the parking lot and drove back to Mark's apartment.

July 27

We slept until 7:30 AM, but have been taking it easy. Tomorrow Mark goes back to work and I head home to Lafayette.

Ruth