Give and take of living in a Chinese compound

I live in what is often termed a "Chinese compound" which, unlike the "international compounds" of Beijing supposedly made to international specifications, is a simpler residence constructed to local standards - or rather the local standards of the 1970s.

The rent is cheap for central Beijing - less then 3,000 yuan ($441) a month - and the neighbors are typical salt-of-the-earth Beijing folk. However, many of my, not so, modern conveniences, have a tendency to break with irritating regularity.

If you are a guest in my humble abode, you may be surprised to find flecks of ceiling plaster drifting down onto your head, or a doorknob coming off in your hand.

Luckily, included in the almost-nominal management fee are free repairs from a maintenance guy whom I've got to know rather well over the years. After all, he has fixed my toilet no less than five times.

Although this hard-working fellow usually does a reasonable job, I often regret using his services because as one repair is completed, another breakage is guaranteed to follow in its wake.

The tap in my kitchen now flows again, but on the very day he fixed it, the cooling system of my water dispenser broke down, so that it now only provides warm water. Perhaps the thing has adopted the personality of one of my community's old women - "Autumn is coming! You shouldn't drink cold water, it's not good for your health!"

An amusing routine I go through regularly involves the man who reads my water meter. He will yank at the hot tap and examine the meter before proclaiming it's not running properly. He then eyes me suspiciously, as though I've been rather unscrupulously enjoying free hot water all this time, and starts to take measurements to install a new meter.

After that's been done to his satisfaction, this curious chap leaves and I don't see him until a few months later, when it's time to repeat the whole charade again. I can only assume installing a new meter is a rather bothersome process and that he's the person responsible for doing it.

Free hot water is a nice benefit, but if you live in an apartment like mine you should carefully inspect the facilities to prevent disaster. I returned home one day to find the place flooded. The culprit was an ancient, rusted water pipe that had finally burst.

In Chinese cities, a hardware store is never far away and my local shop had replacement pipes of exactly the right type for a reasonable price. But I shudder to think what might have happened if I had been out of town for a few days when the pipe burst. At the very least I would now be extremely unpopular with the couple in the apartment below.

Some of the breakages are my own fault, of course. After a couple of extremely frustrating hours trying to get my computer to work one day, I decided I needed to release my anger by breaking something.

Calmly and carefully I put an empty wine bottle into a plastic bag and struck it against my kitchen countertop. It turns out that in fact the counter isn't made of solid marble, as a big chunk broke away as easily as if it had been a big chocolate chip cookie.

My landlady has explained to me before that I should take care of minor breakages myself and so I "take care" of this one by covering the missing section with the kettle every time she comes round to collect the rent.

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