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<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="2">With photo NOT for publication!</font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;"><b><br>
</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;"><b>One Capitol<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;"><b> </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;">In the Daoyi Development District where universities
relocated from their town locations, it was wide-open spaces of farmlands. Three years ago I saw a lonesome four-story
structure a mile north of the campus in the middle of nowhere. The building had a sign on the top floor that
read: One Capitol aka <i>Hui Zhi Shang Du</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;"><o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;">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 in
June. With my radically changed financial
situation, I am hustling to get my promised share of a seventh of the cost for
a third of the space; my host family already plunked their six sevenths of the
total. My share is earmarked for the
inside work that needs to be completed by the time heat is turned on in
November. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;"><o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;">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 seventh
floor are in the best of shape. They climb
twenty steps between each floor. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;"><o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;">Buildings at Shenbei Center are close to twenty years old
but they look ancient compared to the new dwellings in the area. Some occupants even drive official looking black
sedans indicating that they might be government retirees. At 60, they are still sprite enough to care for
grandchildren during the day while the parents work, as two family incomes are now
common to afford the rapidly rising standard and cost of living. I measure inflation by the price of corn on
the cob on the sidewalk, now three times what it was three years ago!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;"><o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;">The newbies in the neighborhood are entrepreneurs who trade
goods from the countryside to the urban markets in buy-and-sell commerce that
fills up quick sprouting sidewalk markets in the summer. These enterprising ones also sneak their
children in to urban schools.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;"><o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;">When I moved in last March, the place looked like a rundown
barracks in Garapan, or a ghetto on the Westside of Chicago. Well, "ghetto" is a misnomer. It is more like the <i>hutong </i>with the narrow but lively street where the palace hired help
in the ancient Imperial Palace in Beijing lived. Private cars crowd my "alley", one
even parks his car on the children's playground that is the central community
node. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;"><o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;">The local street sweeper keeps his tools in my building's
basement so we quickly interacted when I swept three sets of stairs (I live on
the second floor), wiped off the telephone numbers on its walls, scraped the accumulated
flyers including those on the entrance door, then placed potted plants in
strategic locations on the stairs, windows, and landings. A Community
officer 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 on
the wall of the first floor landing. The
officer taped his announcement in a huff.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;"><o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;">One day, I picked up street trash placing them into the bin
and cleaned out the plastered ads on the electric pole on one end of the
playground. The police got the word
around that a "foreigner" resided in the neighborhood after the
community office made sure I understood that I report to the police within 30
days on arrival from any extended absences!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;"><o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;">My new residence at One Capitol follows the classic path of
Shenbei Center. It built five-story
dwellings (British architecture) for immediate occupancy equipped with
underground parking lots, attracting the motor-owning moneyed class. Park-like
surroundings are maintained in villas, townhouses, water fountains, piped
music, gold fish bubble pools, two-floor top mansions, and garden apartments. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;"><o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;">I carted debris Saturday from our ground floor dwelling over
the weekend as my host's daughter works to get the place habitable before the
end of the year. We pushed a cart full
of scraps from the tile layer when a worker next door asked which company we
worked for. "Face" is guarded
in China, of the inquired and the inquirer, so we made up a name and said it with
a smile. The other unit's interior work is
contracted; owners do not show up with rolled-up sleeves but with fans to watch
the work progress, fanning from the shade sipping their soda.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;"><o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;">My host family will get an upgrade from their current
dwelling and I will hang my name on a permanent address for the first time in a
surrounding that represents everything I rebelled against, of gated communities
of the privileged classes, owned by no less than J. Matheson Holdings of Hong
Kong!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;"><o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;">But a good deal is what I got, a seventh of the cost for a
third of the space. I told the ceramic
floor setter to tell inquirers that I was the house gardener since I am seen tending
the garden of corn, radish, cabbage, cucumber, gourds, and green beans.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;"><o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;">On <i>feng shui, </i>my
third of the space is no bargain. I face
the north side that does not get the sun even in the summer, let alone,
winter. Still, since my next seven years
is writing, I got me a quiet secluded surrounding.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;"><o:p> </o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;">To sing praises for One Capitol must be a function of old age.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: 13px;"><o:p> </o:p></div>
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