[Oe List ...] ST Sept. 5 from Jaime

[via OE]

With photo NOT for publication!


One Capitol
 
In the Daoyi Development District where universitiesrelocated from their town locations, it was wide-open spaces of farmlands.  Three years ago I saw a lonesome four-storystructure a mile north of the campus in the middle of nowhere.  The building had a sign on the top floor thatread: One Capitol aka Hui Zhi Shang Du.
 
My host family and I bought a garden apartment there before"rules in the book" got me out of employ; the unit was handed to us inJune.  With my radically changed financialsituation, I am hustling to get my promised share of a seventh of the cost fora third of the space; my host family already plunked their six sevenths of thetotal.  My share is earmarked for theinside work that needs to be completed by the time heat is turned on inNovember. 
 
My current temporary residence is in a seven-story building,constructed in 1995 in what is now called the old Shenbei Center.  Without elevators, residents on the seventhfloor are in the best of shape.  They climbtwenty steps between each floor. 
 
Buildings at Shenbei Center are close to twenty years oldbut they look ancient compared to the new dwellings in the area.  Some occupants even drive official looking blacksedans indicating that they might be government retirees.  At 60, they are still sprite enough to care forgrandchildren during the day while the parents work, as two family incomes are nowcommon to afford the rapidly rising standard and cost of living.  I measure inflation by the price of corn onthe cob on the sidewalk, now three times what it was three years ago!
 
The newbies in the neighborhood are entrepreneurs who tradegoods from the countryside to the urban markets in buy-and-sell commerce thatfills up quick sprouting sidewalk markets in the summer.  These enterprising ones also sneak theirchildren in to urban schools.
 
When I moved in last March, the place looked like a rundownbarracks in Garapan, or a ghetto on the Westside of Chicago.  Well, "ghetto" is a misnomer.  It is more like the hutong with the narrow but lively street where the palace hired helpin the ancient Imperial Palace in Beijing lived.  Private cars crowd my "alley", oneeven parks his car on the children's playground that is the central communitynode.  
 
The local street sweeper keeps his tools in my building'sbasement so we quickly interacted when I swept three sets of stairs (I live onthe second floor), wiped off the telephone numbers on its walls, scraped the accumulatedflyers including those on the entrance door, then placed potted plants instrategic locations on the stairs, windows, and landings.   A Communityofficer tried posting a notice on our entrance door where he always posted before,and I pointed him to a makeshift bulletin board I delineated with duck tape onthe wall of the first floor landing.  Theofficer taped his announcement in a huff.
 
One day, I picked up street trash placing them into the binand cleaned out the plastered ads on the electric pole on one end of theplayground.  The police got the wordaround that a "foreigner" resided in the neighborhood after thecommunity office made sure I understood that I report to the police within 30days on arrival from any extended absences!
 
My new residence at One Capitol follows the classic path ofShenbei Center.  It built five-storydwellings (British architecture) for immediate occupancy equipped withunderground parking lots, attracting the motor-owning moneyed class. Park-likesurroundings are maintained in villas, townhouses, water fountains, pipedmusic, gold fish bubble pools, two-floor top mansions, and garden apartments. 
 
I carted debris Saturday from our ground floor dwelling overthe weekend as my host's daughter works to get the place habitable before theend of the year.  We pushed a cart fullof scraps from the tile layer when a worker next door asked which company weworked for.  "Face" is guardedin China, of the inquired and the inquirer, so we made up a name and said it witha smile.  The other unit's interior work iscontracted; owners do not show up with rolled-up sleeves but with fans to watchthe work progress, fanning from the shade sipping their soda.
 
My host family will get an upgrade from their currentdwelling and I will hang my name on a permanent address for the first time in asurrounding that represents everything I rebelled against, of gated communitiesof the privileged classes, owned by no less than J. Matheson Holdings of HongKong!
 
But a good deal is what I got, a seventh of the cost for athird of the space.  I told the ceramicfloor setter to tell inquirers that I was the house gardener since I am seen tendingthe garden of corn, radish, cabbage, cucumber, gourds, and green beans.
 
On feng shui, mythird of the space is no bargain.  I facethe north side that does not get the sun even in the summer, let alone,winter.  Still, since my next seven yearsis writing, I got me a quiet secluded surrounding.
 
To sing praises for One Capitol must be a function of old age.
 

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