The dead pigeon chilling above Christine’s squatting toilet. How cool is that?

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I said that we found a dead pigeon in our co-workers apartment the day we arrived in Shenyang. Being the picture taking Queen that I am, I couldn’t pass up a photo opportunity. As important as the fact is that we actually found a dead pigeon in her apartment, I think the story of how we found the pigeon is just as important. So I will stop delaying and get to the goods.

We arrived at the train station right on schedule – 7:00 am sharp. If it hadn’t been for everyone getting off the train,I don’t think we would have known it was our stop. No one called out “Last stop” or “We’re here” but when we noticed we were the last ones remaining in our car, we decided it best to follow the crowd. Outside we found Richard and a full entourage of Chinese men waiting to help take our luggage to the cars waiting out front of the station. We of course had too much luggage for just one car, so they had to flag down a taxi or two. I took my computer bag and let them do what they wanted with my suitcase. I waved goodbye to it just in case it went in the taxi and the taxi never went to where it was supposed to.

I was impressed that the principal of our new school, Mr. Zhao, showed up to shake our hands. The only person who met us in Shanghai when we landed was some woman named Cherry who really had no knowledge of the school in Fuyang. She just happened to be the person in charge of making sure we got to Hangzhou to get our paper work in order. So, to see the principal the first instance that we stepped on Shenyang soil made it seem that we were having a promising start. This was an assumption on my part – and we all know what assuming does. As we walked the principal told Richard in Chinese to tell us in English that the train station had been built by the Japanese. Shenyang’s history is long, and since I’ve never been a history buff, I would be wrong to try to describe to you how the Japanese came to reside in Shenyang. If you’re interested, I think http://www.wikipedia.com/ says something about it. But, anyway, on with the story.

The ride to our apartment wasn’t a very long one. After about 15 minutes the car pulled in front of a run down set of apartments. We all sort of looked at each other and hoped that the inside was a much better story than what the outside was telling us. The snow storm that had hit a week earlier was still quite visible. Snow was piled up sky high on either side of where the cars had once been parked. Needless to say, it was quite hazardous walking to the foot of the stairs of our apartment building. I told Phil and Christine(our new friend and co-worker) that the outside of our apartment in Fuyang looked like total crap, but that the inside turned out to be awesome. They laughed and said not to get my hopes up.

Christine’s apartment was on the first floor and ours was on the second. We waited behind Christine as they opened the door for her. Her front door was quiet old and looked like it was ready to fall of it’s hinges. It had definitely seen better days. As they opened the door, someone motioned us to follow them up one more flight. We were able to peer in the door as we walked past it and what we saw made us cringe. “Well,” Phil said, “this is exactly what I expected when I came to China.” What he expected was the worst possible scenario and if the apartment looked like the little piece we saw, then this was the worst possible scenario.

Half way up to our apartment I heard Christine yell, “No, Richard . . . this will not work! This will not work at all!” She said this with so horror in her voice that I no longer had any idea what to expect as they turned the key and opened our door. It didn’t take long to understand why Christine had made such a fuss. I think maybe less than a second.
Our apartment was dark and dirty beyond words. Phil later said that he could hear his mother say in his ear, “Oh, Philby, no,” and that is how he knew that the apartment they were trying to provide us was truly the pits, and quiet possibly hell.

There were several inches of dust covering every surface that we could see. Dust bunnies ran like tumble weeds across the floor as our luggage was dragged in and laid down. I was speechless. Phil was speechless. There was nothing that we could say. We were dumbfounded. Shocked. I tried blinking, pinching myself, in hopes that it was just a bad dream, but it was real. All to real.

We didn’t have a refrigerator. There was no table or chairs, or any other furniture for that matter. I couldn’t see a stove at first, but we found one sitting on top of a bucket on the “balcony”. We would have had to squat to use it and would have felt quiet primitive doing so. It reminded me of one of those portable stoves that you take camping with you, except that this wasn’t a campground. This was supposed to be our home. I only peered in the bathroom, afraid of what I might find, and it didn’t look as bad as the front room, but of course, I only took a peek. The only place that could have been deemed a home was our bedroom. For some reason this particular part of the apartment was bright and somewhat clean, but it was far from homey. It’s just sad that the only thing nice we could say while standing there was, “Hey, at least we have a TV.” I don’t even know if it worked. We weren’t there long enough to found out.

Christine came running up the stairs and was very articulate about how much she detested the place and made sure to let everyone including Richard and the principal. We just nodded in agreement and decided to watch the show. We were still in shock. That’s when we found out that Christine didn’t have a western toilet and that there was a dead bird right above it. Now, squatting toilets aren’t as bad as they seem, but being western, it nice at least to use a familiar toilet after a long days work. When it comes to birds – both dead and alive – they sure as heck don’t belong in the bathroom. Richard tired convincing that the bird was fake. I knew better. I worked long enough at Carolina Wildlife Care to know the difference between a fake and real tweety.

There was a lot of discussion. Richard and the Principle talked for a long while, and every now and then Richard would ask a question. Meanwhile, Christine had disappeared and I had no idea where she had gone. At one point, Richard said, “How was your apartment in Fuyang?” Phil said, “Better than this.” I said, “I’ve got pictures.” They went back to talking in Chinese. When Christine hadn’t come back in the room I decided to go try and find here. I looked in her apartment, but no one was in there. I went down to the ground floor to see if she might be out there, and that is when I saw here dragging her 20 KG suitcase back out to the road and throwing it into the car we had come in. Christine was obviously not staying. I ran over to her and asked what in the world she was doing. “Go get your stuff,” she said. “We’re leaving.”

I ran back upstairs to find Richard and the Principal still talking everything out. Christine wasn’t too far behind me. Richard asked if it was OK to stay here for the next few days until they found something more suitable. Christine’s response, “NO!” Our response, “….” He then continued to say that the school thought since these conditions were OK for Chinese people, that it certainly should have been OK for us. I’ve met a lot of different types of Chinese people – poor, middle class, and rich beyond numbers, and none of them had something quiet like this. There was a lot more talk, some bargaining, and eventually Richard or the Principal gave in and said that we would be taken to a hotel for the night until better apartments could be arranged.

And that’s what they did. They drove us down the street and walked into a few hotels until they found one that would take foreigners that didn’t have passports(Richard had taken ours to get our resident permit). The one that they picked out for us was better by leaps and bounds than the apartment. We would have lived there if it hadn’t been for the inability to take hot showers. Besides that one detail, the place was great. I didn’t think it possible, but I think that the bed in the room was actually softer than the one I use back home – and that one is pretty darn soft.
And I guess everything that happened beyond that doesn’t pertain to this particular post. I’ll have other stories about Shenyang up soon.

Until then
– G