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Advice Needed on Rental for Foreigners I suppose as a 'foreigner' looking for an apartment right now, I can let you know some of my concerns and experiences. I'm Chinese American and I've lived in Hong Kong and Guangzhou for 7 years - so I may not have the language difficulties, but I can still see things from an American viewpoint. The first annoyance when looking for an apartment is being taken to apartments which aren't within your requirement standards. I'm not asking for much - this many bedrooms, modern furniture, within 10 minutes of a subway station, within Jing'An and Luwan areas, price within this range. I've seen about 15 apartments so far, and really only 3 have fit even those simple requirements. And I think the number one annoyance I've had so far - is many Shanghainese apartment owner's furniture taste, to be blunt, is not very suited to renting to foreigners. It's all very faux-Roman, guady, gold plated. Obviously there's a much larger market in renting to local Chinese, so I'm not blaming the owners - I'm blaming my real estate agent for not considering my taste - even though I've detailed it. But a much bigger concern - is rent and contractual obligations. While I speak Chinese pretty well, I'm not a very fast reader - so I had my contract explained to me instead of reading itself and I just signed without reading it. And obviously the number one concern of most foreigners is getting the right rental price. . and not being taken advantage of. I know I don't mind paying for quality or location - but I'd be angry if the last tenant was paying 5,000 a month and I'm being charged 10,000 a month. Additionally,there's a lot of things as a foreigner living in Shanghai that you don't know you need - until you've been through an entire year. Examples being insulation in winter, or cooling ability in summer. How good is the landlord at making needed repairs. Obviously you won't be able know all this information (it's not information we get in the US when we rent) - but if you at least show it's something you're thinking about, I believe the foreigner will be more comfortable. |
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Can you Understand Dish Names in China? Loretta - The Chinese word for "dry" - also colloquieally translates to a ruder term |
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Chinese Stock Market is More Crazy "whatever goes 'up' eventually comes down." While the China bubble will burst and hurt lots of people's savings (and I think they need a correction around here, things are too volitile) - whatever goes up eventually comes down does not apply to stock markets. taking the long view - all major stock markets in the world - dow jones, nasdaq, hang seng, london times, nikkei - have only gone up and up. sure there's corrections and temporary downturns, but everything has only gone up as an upward trend. that might not help the personal investor though - that doesn't have the cash reserves to withstand the downticks, but everything that goes up does not come down. |
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Really Living in Shanghai Ok so would like to get this back to Shanghai. Since so many people are putting Americans down I would love to turn the table on this discussion and ask a question: I am an American (Black/mixed) woman considering Shanghai as a place to live/start my apparel company. I would like an honest (if you can be) assessment of experiences of Black Americans in Shanghai, especially women. Thanks. |