Chinese Laundry

Mike Logan went to Henan province for the weekend, so I asked him if I could borrow the keys to his apartment for the weekend as he has a washing machine. Jessica has not done laundry since coming to China (she brought a lot of clothes) and I have only done real laundry once along with strategic sink washing. Of course Mike does not have a dryer, but those seem pretty rare in China as every seems perfectly happy with crispy air-dried clothes. The water here is very hard, so everything dries very hard as well--in the case of my underwear it can literally stand up on its own.

Mike's apartment (site of the infamous good cop/bad cop shakedown) is in a supposedly "nice" apartment complex just next to our hotel. Let me just say that I think many years of absolute deprivation has resulted in the Chinese being somewhat willing to forgive situations that to Western eyes seem ridiculous. For instance, the apartment building has one main entry gate and then several side gates that are only accessible with an electronic keycard, both for entry AND exit. There are always at least ten people waiting on either side of the gate for someone to come through and either buzz them in or out. There are "guards" stationed next to the gate but they never let people in or out, or stop you from letting people in or out. Ridiculous! At midnight all the side gates are chained shut, which is really comforting should there be some kind of emergency and you can't reach the main gate.

The inside of the building is typically poorly maintained. The carpet is stained, the first time Mike moved in everything was covered with a layer of yellow sand (perhaps from a sandstorm?) and there are exposed wires in the hallways. On top of this, it seems that people rent out the apartments in the complex for businesses as well as living spaces. Just next door to Mike's apartment there is somekind of internet company cranking away, as the place is packed with people on computers typing busily away, and they are always shipping hundreds of boxes in and out every day. Not kidding, EVERY time we go to Mike's apartment there are at least one or two guys with a bicycle delivery pallet full of about 10-20 Lenovo desktops stacked (optional assistant for unloading on top of the boxes). These guys clog up the entrance gate with their deliveries and always bogart the elevator. Today one of these guys crammed in with a delivery dolly, and then refused to move when it came to my floor. I even said "excuse me" in Chinese and he just played dumb. I shoved him out of the way, which made me angry because I didn't want to come across as an ugly, rude foreigner, but come on, dude! Get out of my way on the elevator! I've noticed that elevator etiquette is nonexistent here, people will just shove in (this applies to the subway, too) when you're trying to get out and never hold the door for you. I imagine when you live with 1.5 billion people, you just don't have time to wait for everyone else.

Jessica and I have been running laundry loads for about two days straight here, and Mike's apartment is covered with drying clothes. He gets back from Henan on Monday morning, so everything should have plenty of time to dry properly by then. I won't be sad to never have to come back to this complex again. It's madness in here!