Looking for apartments in Beijing
Yesterday I looked at three apartments in the area around where I go to school and work currently. Ideally I would find a full time job first and then pick a place to live nearby, but I can not stay in my dorm at school much longer because I do not plan to stay in school. The rooms were all more expensive than what I wanted to pay, only one was nice enough that I would actually like to live there and that one was in a inconvenient area.
I visited two places with an agent who specializes in finding apartments. He only showed me two places and tried to pressure me into renting it right away. In addition he wanted a one month finders fee, which is the standard. But after showing me only two places, I felt he was not earning his money. I still have time, I decided to be patient. I was proud of the fact that I conducted all this in Chinese. I had problems of course sometimes, but I could understood the gist of what people were saying. I had to clarify things occasionally. There are certain norms in renting in China, people simply expect you to know. Such as on top of a full month’s deposit, you must pay three months rent. In China you usually pay the rent quarterly rather than monthly. Often a room is supplied with a bed, furniture, a washer, and other things I never expected when renting in the US. Nonetheless, I am still looking.
I had an interview with a Japanese company last Saturday. This was an actual interview for an actual job in a really nice office in a very nice building in a good part of town. I felt nervous for the first time in a long time. I was surprised though, because I was confident that I may be the only person in China that could meet the job requirements, a native English Speaker who speaks Japanese and Chinese with sales and business experience. But I found out I was one of at least three guys who were being interviewed. I met one of them. He was a really nice Canadian guy who spent two years in Japan on the JET program, went to China and married a Chinese girl and has lived in northeast China for four years. I have not heard back from the company yet.
I felt pretty good after chatting with my mother online this morning. One of her great abilities is to see all of your good qualities, encourage and support you. If only I could hire her as my marketing agent! But she inspired me to appreciate the skills that I have and find a company that appreciates me. One of the hardest things for me, and I bet other people as well, is to appreciate yourself. Often we take ourselves for granted and forget about it. Thank goodness my mother will not let me do that. The search for opportunities goes on.
I did get good news recently. I was able to get Level 6 of the Chinese Proficiency Exam that I took in June. I took the test in April and got Level 5. My score in listening improved the most, which frankly was a shock. Logic says there is a cause for everything, but I can not pinpoint what it was. I guess that it may simply be that I became used to the testing format.
A jump from Level 5 to Level 6 is meaningful because Level 6 is the required minimum level necessary to take regular classes at a Chinese University. This means if I wanted to take business or accounting classes at a Chinese University I could. So that is a new option I did not have before. Foreign students in the US have to get certain scores on the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) test to go to a US university. The Chinese Proficiency test is similar to that.
I visited two places with an agent who specializes in finding apartments. He only showed me two places and tried to pressure me into renting it right away. In addition he wanted a one month finders fee, which is the standard. But after showing me only two places, I felt he was not earning his money. I still have time, I decided to be patient. I was proud of the fact that I conducted all this in Chinese. I had problems of course sometimes, but I could understood the gist of what people were saying. I had to clarify things occasionally. There are certain norms in renting in China, people simply expect you to know. Such as on top of a full month’s deposit, you must pay three months rent. In China you usually pay the rent quarterly rather than monthly. Often a room is supplied with a bed, furniture, a washer, and other things I never expected when renting in the US. Nonetheless, I am still looking.
I had an interview with a Japanese company last Saturday. This was an actual interview for an actual job in a really nice office in a very nice building in a good part of town. I felt nervous for the first time in a long time. I was surprised though, because I was confident that I may be the only person in China that could meet the job requirements, a native English Speaker who speaks Japanese and Chinese with sales and business experience. But I found out I was one of at least three guys who were being interviewed. I met one of them. He was a really nice Canadian guy who spent two years in Japan on the JET program, went to China and married a Chinese girl and has lived in northeast China for four years. I have not heard back from the company yet.
I felt pretty good after chatting with my mother online this morning. One of her great abilities is to see all of your good qualities, encourage and support you. If only I could hire her as my marketing agent! But she inspired me to appreciate the skills that I have and find a company that appreciates me. One of the hardest things for me, and I bet other people as well, is to appreciate yourself. Often we take ourselves for granted and forget about it. Thank goodness my mother will not let me do that. The search for opportunities goes on.
I did get good news recently. I was able to get Level 6 of the Chinese Proficiency Exam that I took in June. I took the test in April and got Level 5. My score in listening improved the most, which frankly was a shock. Logic says there is a cause for everything, but I can not pinpoint what it was. I guess that it may simply be that I became used to the testing format.
A jump from Level 5 to Level 6 is meaningful because Level 6 is the required minimum level necessary to take regular classes at a Chinese University. This means if I wanted to take business or accounting classes at a Chinese University I could. So that is a new option I did not have before. Foreign students in the US have to get certain scores on the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) test to go to a US university. The Chinese Proficiency test is similar to that.
Labels: China
posted by Mark at
5:20 AM
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