Day 1

10.04.18

How to rent a place in China

• Go through an agent (lianjia 链家 or 5i5j 我爱我家 are two of the biggest agencies in the market)
• The place I'm staying at was advertised at 3000RMB/mth. You always bargain the price. TIP: Always ask "how low can you go?" 
• Bargained until 2680/month (Why 80? it sounds better than 2700 - Rationale: this is the language of the business world, it sounds better!)
• Landlord says: I won't be changing the offer, you have my word!
• By the way, rent in China never includes electricity, gas or water 
• It's a 40 sq m one bedroom apartment with a balcony, in quite an old area - location is very convenient for transport and living in general, the only downside is that I have to walk up 7 flights of stairs to get there since there are no lifts in these types of buildings
• The landlord doesn't even live there, he was allocated the property by his work (this is very common in China - back in the day, the State used to own all properties but since economic reform starting in the 80s, employees of State owned enterprises were allocated properties in their name)

Mahjong Den

• Experienced a Mahjong hall/den for the first time - smoky atmosphere from all the ciggies with a scent of jasmine tea as all the uncles and aunties prepare themselves for a long night playing this beautiful game
• There are 100/200/300RMB games. The stakes are agreed upon by all the players at the start of the round
• The pace of the games are incredible - there are some old timers here who don't even need to look at their cards to know how to play them
• There is a points system - how many coins are won depends on the points of each winning hand. There are three different coloured coins:
• Yellow coins are worth 1
• Green coins are worth 10
• Red coins are worth 50
• When the game is over, the purses come out, stacks of 100RMB bills are revealed - it's time to pay up and buy in to the next round 
• The house takes a cut - usually around 30-40% which they will only take half of it - the other half is handed out as 'reward cards' to incentivise players to keep playing
• The games runs all day, with a cook preparing lunch and dinner for those who stick around

Dinner with my uncles old army mates 

• Chinese OGs love to pull up their shirts to reveal their bellies (it's like a competition of who has the biggest belly!)
• The youngest of the OGs was cheersing everyone - this is an unwritten rule in China
• So the uncles wanted me to taste China's little lobsters. Chinese people are proud of their small lobsters (and keep saying it's different from the big lobsters you have in Australia). The only meat is in the tail.

Speed limits in China

• I learnt that as long as you're under 10%-20% over the speed limit, you're good to go...