Apartment in Beijing 2
I've gotten tired of looking at apartments in Beijing and most of all I've gotten tired of people who can't keep an appointment.
I grew up with the Swedish way customs of being on time where you should never come early and being late up to 5 min late is ok. While here in China, you just have to shake your head and laugh sometimes. The latest incident left me not knowing whether to become upset or laugh out loud. Here is the story.
A few days ago, I was looking at apartments after work. After having seen 2, the agent told me there would be a third one if I could only wait until 8 pm. By then, it was 7.30 and I was thinking of leaving but since I had already gotten to the area, I might as well see it. The agent call up the lady and she was only 20 min away. Well I thought, and decided to stay around.
Around 8 pm, still no landlady and the agent calls up again. Now, she's only 5 min away and since I had already waited for 30 min, I might as well wait 5 more.
10 min passes and the agent calls up again. This time, she is very close and would arrive in 1-2 minutes. By this time, I was already a bit edgy but there was no point getting upset at the agent so I could only think of something else but my numbing legs in the winter evening.
By around 8.20, the landlady come up to us and complains to the agent about the agent not being able to make appointments and dragging her out in the evening without enough heads-up. I asked myself why she didn't simply decline if she didn't want to come out instead of getting angry but I kept it to myself.
We go up the elevator and up to the apartment. The hallway is clean and the view is very nice, maybe it wasn't a waste of time after all, I thought. Until she calls on the door and nobody answers. She picks up the phone to call the tenants and it turned out the tenants were out and she didn't have a key. This is the kind of thing you would normally want to check up before making an appointment I assume, especially if you intend to lecture someone about how to make appointments. But again, I kept that to myself just in case I wanted to have a shot at the apartment.
When I called back today, it turned out that the tenents were going to extend the contract. So all of us went out there in a cold Beijing evening for nothing.
So much for communication in China.
Your watchful eyes in Beijing.
/Y
I grew up with the Swedish way customs of being on time where you should never come early and being late up to 5 min late is ok. While here in China, you just have to shake your head and laugh sometimes. The latest incident left me not knowing whether to become upset or laugh out loud. Here is the story.
A few days ago, I was looking at apartments after work. After having seen 2, the agent told me there would be a third one if I could only wait until 8 pm. By then, it was 7.30 and I was thinking of leaving but since I had already gotten to the area, I might as well see it. The agent call up the lady and she was only 20 min away. Well I thought, and decided to stay around.
Around 8 pm, still no landlady and the agent calls up again. Now, she's only 5 min away and since I had already waited for 30 min, I might as well wait 5 more.
10 min passes and the agent calls up again. This time, she is very close and would arrive in 1-2 minutes. By this time, I was already a bit edgy but there was no point getting upset at the agent so I could only think of something else but my numbing legs in the winter evening.
By around 8.20, the landlady come up to us and complains to the agent about the agent not being able to make appointments and dragging her out in the evening without enough heads-up. I asked myself why she didn't simply decline if she didn't want to come out instead of getting angry but I kept it to myself.
We go up the elevator and up to the apartment. The hallway is clean and the view is very nice, maybe it wasn't a waste of time after all, I thought. Until she calls on the door and nobody answers. She picks up the phone to call the tenants and it turned out the tenants were out and she didn't have a key. This is the kind of thing you would normally want to check up before making an appointment I assume, especially if you intend to lecture someone about how to make appointments. But again, I kept that to myself just in case I wanted to have a shot at the apartment.
When I called back today, it turned out that the tenents were going to extend the contract. So all of us went out there in a cold Beijing evening for nothing.
So much for communication in China.
Your watchful eyes in Beijing.
/Y
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