TRAVEL WRITINGS

So, I just came back from Brazil. I’m still trying to get my barrings around the city, so MUCH has changed in two months… my old bar street is no more than a dead and dried-up alley-way, and there’s a bunch of new places popping up all over the place! But most importantly, I’m still homeless… crashing at a friend’s place, the search for a new apartment goes on.

Finding an apartment in Shanghai can look somewhat like looking for a place back home when you first glance at it, but it quickly becomes a roller-coaster nightmare of misadventures.

Not knowing where to turn I started off with the that’s Shanghai classifieds section. Prices jacked up like you would not believe, my budget shouldn’t be max 3,000RMB (about 350$USD), but 3,000$USD for my French palace, expat style.

So, I figured I would do the next best thing: go to an agency. Along one street corner there can easily be 2 or 3 real estate agencies, there are literally thousands across the city, so you just choose one at random in the area you are looking into. Seeing my white face walking into their place, makes dollar signs appear in the pupils of their eyes.

I was reminded of an English class conversation a friend of mine had with a student: “so you’re renting your apartment, right? How much are you charging?” asks my friend. The answer came as naturally as anything one would do and without the slightest trace of shame , even though my friend is a white foreigner himself. “Well, if it’s a Chinese I’ll charge 1,500RMB (175$USD), but if it’s a foreigner I’ll rent it for 3,000RMB. The apartment’s got a lot of stuff you know, a foreigner can pay this, no problem.”

Money certainly seems to grow somewhere… just haven’t figured out where.

Agency tours have a particular flavor. You’re honest in the prices you desire, while they try to get the most out of the deal. So they bring you to a number of apartments in your stated price range, apartments that look more like dumpsters than anything else.

They make you visit a number of these. Often you’ll accumulate up to four agents with you as they go through a number of other agencies each one there for a piece of the pie.

After a while, you say you’d like something better than the crap hole they’re showing. And bang! They bring you to this swanky palace that rocks your world… it’s just 2,000RMBs (240$USD) more than what you said was your max!! Many of us, tired of turning in circles breakdown and accept this.

... so I had to enlist the help of friends! Being helped by all my wonderful Chinese friends (Thanks Lea, Michelle, Jenny and Ivan).

Friends that relate what the agents think (and comment loudly that) “she’s only the translator so we can still take advantage of him.” But, I persist. I make my list of demands: two bedrooms, living room, kitchen, fully furnished, newly renovated, 3,000. “Oh yes! I have just the thing for you,” replies the eager young girl behind her desk. “It’s a penthouse, with a little garden, 200 square meters, parking space,...”

I sit there, hearing the live translation from my friend, and she automatically reacts: “this is impossible! For 3,000RMB what’s the catch?!” The real estate agent stops… “3,000… RMB??? oh!! I thought you meant USD, he’s a foreigner after all.”

In the end I finally visited a place I liked. There was no furniture there, but the house was newly renovated, spacious, big bay windows to let the sun in and fairly centrally located. The agent guaranteed me all the furniture would be moved in the following day. I must act quickly? Many others want this place? ok, ok! You want 1,000RMB deposit? no problem, here.

Human stupidity. I come back the next day. The bed is minuscule (I’m 189cm/ 6’2” and besides, I’m no child anymore I wanna spread the eagle!), they put in ugly shelving everywhere that cuts in on the light and space, no microwave oven (forget real ovens, non-existent in China), no pots, pans, glasses, bowls… not even a pair of chopsticks! A couch from the junkyard sale. Not even bedding.

Ok. Now I’m pissed. you change things around to what you told me: double bed and fully furnished or you give me the deposit back.

Negotiations drag on. I guess my Chinese friends don’t always understand how exhausting it is to assist to all this as a foreigner. They do do all the negotiation work, but much like in Lost in Translation I only get small parts of the on-goings… and when it’s your money that’s on the table, with other people negotiating how much it’s going to cost you… it would be nice to know!

So, I loose patience. Fine, I had enough, if it’s gonna be like this every time I pay rent I want my deposit back.

No way. You gave it, you loose it, too late. My friend threatens that she has connections with the courts, knows judges, knows the police, and that because I’m a foreigner this case will be famous and they’ll have to pay the big bucks… basically: “don’t mess with me.” They don’t move. She calls the police. They don’t move.

The police walks in: one is on our side while the other seems to have been bought by the owner of the agency. Yelling: my friend the lawyer, the landlord, the two police officers yelling at everyone including themselves, the real-estate agents and even I got a few words in there.

I got 80% of my deposit back… and a headache.

Which in the end is exactly what they want you to have, they want you to have a mother of a migraine so you finally break down. Chinese, particularly Shanghainese, has this particularity of sounding like people are about to go at it and kill each other, while they’re truly bonding together. After a while it makes you just want to say: “yes, ok I’ll do it. Whatever it is that I’m suppose to do or not do. Just stop!