My 14 days in quarantine approach their end, in Beijing, self-isolation does not extend to a daily walk, or trips to ‘essential’ services and means staying firmly indoors, so I am very excited at the prospect of being unleashed upon the streets of my new, and as yet unseen, home.
Tuesday morning, I will be driven to my new hotel in Beijing’s CBD, where I am hoping the Internet will be a little less prone to freezing up and where I will be able to explore my surroundings, and change my menu. For the last 12 days, breakfast, lunch and dinner have been provided by the Beipinglou Zhengyuan Catering Company, and while the meals have been delicious, I am looking forward to introducing a little variety. China has dozens of different regional cuisines to sample, and then there are the plethora of other Asian offerings, everything from Japanese, Korean, Mongolian, Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian and Indian to work my way through. It would be rude not to do them all justice.
My new hotel, the contemporary-sounding 5L, is across the road from the China World Mall (Reader, I shall not be visiting) and is about a 10-minute walk from the office. Not that I shall be going into the office just yet. CGTN are erring on the side of caution, and so I will not be passing through the doors of Minjheer Koolhaas’ magnificent gravity-defying steel and glass hollow trapezoid until April 14th.
While I will be working from the 5L, I also intend to make the most of my liberty. I have an entire city to explore, although how much of it is still closed remains to be seen. If it is open, my first jaunt may well be to the terrace of the Mandarin Oriental bar for a celebratory cocktail. It overlooks the Forbidden City and as the palaces are still closed, at least according to the website, the MO is about as close as I’m likely to get for now. That said, a number of other historic sites have reopened, including some sections of the Great Wall, and in town, several museums and the stunning Temple of Heaven, so if not before, I shall be indulging my inner emperor next weekend.
There’s a bit to get done before then, though. Work aside, I’ll be taken on Wednesday to get a local bank account and telephone number, and will undergo the mandatory health check for the residency permit. After that, one of my main extra-curricular pursuits will be flat hunting.
As with so much of life these days, that has become complicated. Leaving aside one perennial factor - that rents are apparently higher in the winter than in the summer, making this the wrong time of year for flat hunting - there are two Covid-related complications.
Firstly, some landlords are now unwilling to rent to non-Chinese, even though it is technically illegal to discriminate. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it is not possible to visit most of the places up for rent, as access to residential neighbourhoods is still strictly controlled. A fair percentage of apartments are located in compounds, which can now only be entered through designated gates, where those seeking ingress must submit to temperature control and demonstrate proof of residency to be admitted. While this does not apply to delivery services, in apparently usually does to anyone hoping to look at a flat.
Of course, it is entirely possible to secure a flat without stepping foot inside it. Agents are offering to film videos tours, though that does mean they might choose to overlook a flat’s flaws. Similarly, while apps and websites like Lianjia, Ziroom, Wellcee and the classifieds section of The Beijinger, make it is easy to hunt at a distance, doing so does require one to take it on trust that images accurately reflect the property. And there is sufficient reason to believe that some do not. As I have been warned, and have indeed begun to discover for myself, some agents post deliberately misleading photographs to attract more enquiries.
While some listings are photo(shopped) to varying degrees of Instaperfection, most seem to have been shot after a hard-core night on the tiles; lighting is off, focus is blurred, angles are skewed and close-ups/partials feature heavily, making it (deliberately) difficult to form an accurate impression. In addition, little effort is made to make places look presentable. Instead, they are shot in a ‘come-as-you-are’ fashion, beds unmade, clothes strewn on the floor, furniture covered in piles of accreted junk, kitchens looking like they’ve just been used to cook for an army. Or been invaded by one. Throw in furniture that is as uncomfortable to look at as it must be to sit on, peeling wallpaper, flaking paint, missing door handles and water stains on the parquet flooring, and you have the flat-hunting equivalent of Lurid Digs. Minus the hilarious/heart-breaking nude shots.
I’m not suggesting that Beijing has a monopoly on less-than-appetising housing, though it does seem to specialise in the small and the awkwardly laid-out, at least at my end of the market. I’d need to be paying double my current budget to get the kind of place that makes my heart beat faster. Rents here are eye watering, though thankfully, everything else is much, much cheaper.
I’ll admit to being picky. I’d much rather rent an unfurnished flat and slowly furnish it – all you need is a bed to begin - than endure other people’s taste, but for some reason, that seems to be difficult to arrange through agents. Nor do I mind an unorthodox layout if I it gets me light and space in return. The last ‘flat’ I rented in London was on a pre-refurbishment Peabody Estate – Victorian housing for the working poor, for those who may not know - and so had a combined kitchen/bathroom, and while there was a wall between the cooker and the toilet (not all the flats had that ‘luxury’), it was still possible to turn the kettle on from the comfort of the commode.
I’m also willing to live somewhere I don’t like until I find somewhere I love. It took four dispiriting years to find my beloved rooftop in Beirut, and I spent a year in the world’s most soulless, cinder-coloured prefab flat in Takasaki before I lucked upon the gorgeous tatami-matted, shoji-walled wooden garden house I enjoyed for my last two years in Japan’s navel. That’s the Japanese description of Gunma Prefecture, btw, not mine. Personally, I’d locate Takasaki somewhat lower down the human body. And on the other side.
So, I suppose that the long and short of this is to say that while I cannot wait to throw myself into Beijing life and look forward eagerly to welcoming guests at some point, it now seems likely I will not be in a position to do so just yet. Perhaps not even this year. Not that many of you are likely contemplating intercontinental travel when it now takes 8 hours just to move to the top of the online grocery shopping queue. But rest assured, I shall be tireless. My on-going quest for the year will be to either find a stunning 37th Floor flat with killer skyline views, or the most beautifully-restored hutong house in town. And once I do, as the Lebanese like to say, beiti beitak.
Oh and in case you thought I was exaggerating about those flat hunting website shots, feast your eyes on these. Click, for the full g(l)ory.
