Xiamen Apartment^

Click here for pictures of our previous apartment (in Kunming). Students: Click here for info about how to find our apartment, and what to expect when you visit. Here are a few photos to show where we live during our first year of teaching at Xiamen University (Zhangzhou campus). This photo was taken on our balcony, looking toward the orange roof of a building on campus. We are surrounded by hundreds of empty apartments (and a few neighbors). There's no FDIC in China (yet; but they are talking about it), and bank interest rates are very low, so those who have money buy and hold empty apartments as investments. Well, they don't really "buy" these condos--click here for an explanation! As you can see, there is some nice green space around us; our apartment is small but comfortable.	We are living in a small town (Zhangzhou Development Zone), connected by ferry to the huge island-city of Xiamen. This map shows our location in SE China's coastal Fujian Province. "A" is the old Xiamen University Campus, which is about 100 km (60 miles) from "B," the new campus, by road. That would take about two hours, or more. We have rented an apartment about five-minutes-walk from the new campus' North Gate, so we just walk to class. Most teachers (however) use a specially-arranged bus/ferry/bus link to shuttle between campuses in about 50 minutes (the dotted green line is a ferry). There are about 10,000 students on campus (it actually hosts two universities), but the area around campus is undeveloped. We have a few convenience stores, small fruit/vegetable stalls, and shops/restaurants that cater to students, but any "real" shopping must be done in Xiamen. Therefore, we take the ferry when we want to go shopping, go to church, or "visit civilization"!
Vivian took this photo by the university's north gate. "A" is our apartment building, just five minutes away! "B" is a mountain that is being moved (to create an island with expensive homes). "C" is the local police station (with the hospital next to it, not visible in this photo). Behind the police station you see other tall apartment/condo buildings (mostly empty). "D" is one of several entrances to the village across from campus, where students go to eat out (when they get tired of cafeteria food), buy clothes, get haircuts, quench their thirst (mostly with non-alcoholic drinks, often flavored with teas or fruits), fix mobile phones, and do the other things that college students like to do.
The above photo shows our living room (which is also Michael's office). The dining table normally sits by the white wall in the front corner (in this photo we had moved it to give more room to dinner guests). The front door is by the red rug. We bought and installed an AC/heater in the living room, so it is the only room that is "livable" in the middle of winter or summer. The washer is on the balcony (past the glass doors).	Looking back from the living room, you see where the dining table is supposed to be. Behind it, you see the master bedroom. Turn right past the table and you can turn right to enter the kitchen, turn left to enter the spare bedroom (basically a closet for us), or go straight into the bathroom.
On the left you'll see our little bathroom; the shower hose on the wall gave us so little water pressure that we added another showerhead, that basically lets it rain on you. We use a mop to dry the floor after every shower.	Then you see our kitchen. It has no cabinets, but Vivian has done a great job of organizing its limited space. The view on the left shows the "curtain" Vivian added under the sink, and also shows the range hood. After taking these photos we got a toaster oven, which sits under the hood.
This is the master bedroom. Vivian's office is in the corner, most of the year! Right now (January), it is too cold to be anywhere but the living room. But we do have an electric blanket to warm the bed up before we turn in for the night.	These are some of our things that were crushed in the move from Kunming to Xiamen. I'd used the white cups since 1985, when I bought them in Xiamen; most of these keepsakes had only sentimental value.
Due to previous damage when relocating, we sold all of our furniture (in fact, as much as we could part with) in Kunming, and we tried to pack other things carefully; but after watching the workers "roll" our boxes and toss them on/off trucks, we are grateful that most of our goods arrived in usable condition. These three photos show the van our things left Kunming in, the open truck that arrived in Zhangzhou with "everything we own", and the condition of the boxes upon arrival! The first time we visited campus, there was a very loud "thunderclap" that frightened us into thinking we were in for the storm of our lives. Later, we found out that it was man-made: there are frequent explosions in the nearby hills (from which they get the rocks in the truck shown below!). Advertisements show that they are building two dolphin-shaped islands nearby, on which they plan to build expensive houses with private docks (for people with a "yacht club" income level).
From our bedroom balcony you can see the bus stop in front of the "university hospital" (actually, it's a small branch of a large Zhangzhou hospital, for those who live in this Development Zone). Heavy trucks noisily haul rocks past our bedroom day and night. Both Xiamen and Zhangzhou are also huge container shipping ports, so those trucks often go by as well.	Our friend Randy took this last photo from the back balcony. You can see the mountain that is being moved, and the vast field of dirt that constantly blows our way. The low, distant mountain is on the Island of Xiamen, about four miles away (I'd guess). At night you can often clearly see Xiamen's waterfront lights; in the fog you can hear a foghorn--which is kind of cool!