House Hunters - Guangzhou

This is reposted from my old blog on Wordpress, November 2014.

I have been in China for about a week now, and many of my thoughts have been constantly revolving around the topic of finding someplace to live. I am currently living in a hotel room, provided for by my company, but seeing as I will be working here as an English teacher for at least a year, I would like to find an actual apartment. Not to mention, my company is only providing the hotel room for up to two weeks.

I don't know about other large cities in China, but in Guangzhou it seems that the only proper way to find an apartment is to hire an agent. This apparently stands true for Chinese house-hunters as well, and so with the language barrier it is only all the more true for a foreigner such as myself. So step one is to find an agent who is fully capable of communicating with both you and local landlords.

Step two is to follow your agent around as he or she attempts to show you places that fulfill your desires and hopefully are within your budget. When you find a place that you like, hesitation is not allowed. I allowed myself five hours or so to consider my options before making my first offer on a place, and by that time it had already been reserved by someone else. The second place I wanted to make an offer on ended up being in a very awkward lease situation, with the tenant leaving mid-lease and the landlord being out of country. Apartment hunting is by no means "smooth sailing" in my experience thus far.

Here are some things to think about: lower floor means lower price; older building means lower price, but likely less amenities; willingness to use a squat toilet may disqualify you from finding a western roommate; well-lit means higher price; and four means death, and death likely means a lower price.

As a side note, you should be aware that not every Chinese landlord is willing to rent to a foreigner. This is not necessarily due to some deep-seated anti-westernism, but rather due simply to some awkward tax laws. By law, foreigners working in mainland China must have a rather hefty amount of tax removed from their income each month, but certain allowances are made for deductions. One very worthwhile deduction is the cost of renting a living space. In order to redeem this deduction, one has to request a "fa piao," a sort of official receipt, from your landlord each month and give it to your employer. Now I don't fully understand how this works, but it seems that by issuing a fa piao, the landlord is now on official record as having paid some sort of tax. The problem is not immediate, but rather after the foreigner leaves, even if a Chinese citizen moves into the space, the police will continue to pester the landlord for the tax. So out of convenience, and disdain for pestering police, landlords many times prefer Chinese tenants.

Step three, once you have successfully found a place that you like, and is actually available to foreigners, and really is available still, and is not in an unpleasant situation, you will meet with the landlord. The meeting, in my experience is simply a lengthy conversation in Chinese between the landlord and your agent, with you trying hard to read from facial expressions and gestures whether or not your venture is heading towards success. I am currently in the midst of something like step three-and-a-half, due to the landlord's renting license still being in process.  

I'm guessing that step four is to sign the contract and move in.  You could divide that into two steps if you prefer, so that moving in has more acclaim, or, if you wish, you could do away with step four altogether and jump directly to steps five and six.  After all, you may not want to include a four, and you certainly won't want to end the process there (although as we will see the whole process of life does end with four, or at least the phonological irony of it's Chinese equivalent).

I mentioned above that "four means death." That is not actually entirely accurate, because they are two separate words. For all practical purposes, though, apart from a variation in tone the two Chinese equivalents for the words "four" and "death" are pronounced exactly the same. As a result, the number four is considered highly unlucky, and you may do well, as I did, to find an available apartment on a fourth floor. If all goes well over the next couple of days, I just may have a place on the floor of death. Here's to hoping.