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Thanks Ray, I’ll check it out. And who knows, maybe one of their cleaning staff is for hire. But I have to confess I did bend the truth a bit in my above post; the jakes at the Bookworm are pretty much spotless, although the place is owned by an Irishman so I’m not sure if that counts …
Whoa, time to throw some cold water on this party. Ray, I have read everyone’s subsequent posts and I don’t see who else you could be referring to but me, when you write, “it’s untrue (and a little offensive?) to say that cleaning standards are lower amongst Chinese”. However, I did not say that. Rather, I said, “Bottom line: the local concept of clean is fundamentally different than what you are probably used to back home. Either get used to it, clean yourself, or be prepared to spend a significant amount of time trying to train your Ayi, with mixed results.”
And what I stated is simply a fact: cleaning standards ARE fundamentally different amongst Chinese – *generally speaking*. Which I thought it was clear I was doing. Of course we can find probably millions of Chinese people who are as clean as or cleaner than any of us posting here. Indeed I have met some. But those people are not coming over to clean my house, so I’m not talking about them. I’m talking about the people who are coming over to clean my house, which is an Ayi. And as has been observed, time and again by people posting here, Chengdu Ayis think clean is “no trash, I got it wet”. And as that is apparently accepted by the Chinese people who own the buildings all over this fair city – the malls, the office complexes, the government buildings, the grocery stores, and yes, the apartment buildings – that is “fundamentally different” cleaning standards amongst Chinese, quite generally. This is a Chinese city, isn’t it?
As far as I can tell, no-one here is intent on having a Bash the Dirty Chinaman Party. What we are here doing is attempting to Solve the Ineffectual Ayi Problem in Chengdu. Now, this problem may indeed be insoluble, but as we do live here and it is demonstrably a problem, we are entitled to attempt to solve it, in an appropriate forum. And what more appropriate and useful forum than this? Let us not devolve into PC-isms and infighting. There is enough of that back home.
Again: no-one is saying “all Chinese are dirty”. Not even close, so please stop trying to put that into peeps’ mouths. If anything, we are saying something more like, “I can’t find a Chengdu Ayi who knows how to do much more than slap cold water around on my floor!” That’s a far cry from a general condemnation of the cleanliness of all Chinese. The only person to mention “all Chinese” is you.
No, if I wanted to rant about that topic, I would have brought up the absolutely disgusting condition of every public bathroom I have entered in the entirely of China. I would have brought up the constant public spitting – even on the restaurant floor. I would have brought up the desultory manner in which every single cleaning person I have publicly observed cleaning seems to have the same “cleaning ethic” as the previously mentioned Ayis, just sort of robotically moving a filthy mob or thatched broom around on the hallway or sidewalk, irrespective of actual dirt or trash (or passers by). But I did not mention that, did I. But since you got me going, I don’t see how anyone who has been into a public restroom in China can argue with a straight face that the standards of cleanliness here are the same as Western ones (heck, or even Thai standards, for example, for that matter), your ex-parents-in-law’s house notwithstanding.
On a final note: not a big enough market in Chengdu? I agree completely, and it proves my point. A city of 10+ million with no demand for a decent cleaning service with “competitive standards of quality” = lower cleaning standards, at least locally. That is what having “no market” for decent cleaning means: lower standards of cleaning! Or rather, the lack of a market stems from the lack of high standards of cleanliness.
However, in the midst of all this ranting (which has been fun, I must admit – and who doesn’t love a good rant in the morning?:), a solution – and it comes from Ray. I think his idea to “
cope out the 5 star hotels here” is actually right on the money. Let someone (maybe me) give it a try and report back their results.
It’s the same for me in the north of CD. I have an Ayi who is also the Ayi at the school where I work (big mistake – how to fire her and still maintain Guanxi? I suppose I could tell her I found a girlfriend who likes to clean and I won’t need her anymore). She comes in once a week for about 90 minutes or 2 hours and I pay her 60 kwai. She washes my clothes (and, with much instruction, hangs them so they will dry semi-wrinkle free), washes any dishes she sees lying dirty, and slaps dirty water all around my 90+ sq.m. flat. I had to buy better mops and try to teach her the concept of scrubbing. It still hasn’t totally taken, and when I walk around barefoot, after more than 5 months of her “cleaning”, the soles of my feet are black within minutes. She still basically thinks getting the floors wet qualifies as clean!
Once I dipped my finger in the dirty water, and I realized that she wasn’t even using hot water to clean with. So that was another lesson I had to give. I’ll have to spot-check that soon, I guess. I had been paying her extra to give the floors an “extra-hard” mopping, but when I realized I was paying for nothing, in fact, I dropped her back down to the usual rate (much to her disappointment).
She’s not a bad lady, just a simple country soul whose concept of clean is “no visible dirt or trash”. If I get a wet cloth and rub it on the floor and it comes up black, she is always shocked, and immediately begins to protest, as if I’d played some dirty laowai trick on her industrious ass.
Bottom line: the local concept of clean is fundamentally different than what you are probably used to back home. Either get used to it, clean yourself, or be prepared to spend a significant amount of time trying to train your Ayi, with mixed results.
And I’m about trained out with this model. If anyone in the Jinniu/Chengsha area has a good/potentially good Ayi to recommend/share/train together, please contact me.
This is something I’ve gone round and round about in the six-odd months I’ve dwelt in the ‘Du. Contrary to the experience of some others posting here, my dealings with Western Union in China were not a particularly user-friendly experience.
I went with a Chinese colleague to a bank across town that was reputed to have Western Union capability. It did, but they said I would have to send US dollars, and not RMB. Of course, they did not exchange currency, so I was send to another bank a few hundred meters down the way. Once there, we found that foreigners are not allowed to exchange money in China (or at least at that bank – translations get garbled sometimes). Unfortunately, my colleague had not brought her ID, so we were stymied, at least until the boyfriend of the bank clerk, who was sitting right there lest someone hit on her, jumped up and offered to change the currency for us. Anything to get the laowai who was flirting with his lady out of there.
Then it was back to the first bank, where we were informed that they were no longer wiring money out of China that business day (it was all of 3:30 pm – bankers hours, I guess). So we were directed to a third bank, where we finally completed the transaction (after a total elapsed time of 2 + hours). Maybe there’s an easier way to use WU – I think some of the earlier posters could describe a better method – but I can’t currently recommend it, personally.
On the other hand, when I more recently tried to do a bank transfer, it took less than an hour, and was all completed within the same bank branch. I went to the Bank of China Sichuan Branch; the address is NO. 35 Section 2 Renmin Zhonglu. It’s right across from the Yafei Dental Clinic, the one that looks like a church or something inside.
At this Bank of China, there is an entire section off to the left devoted to overseas financial matters. They even speak a smattering of topic-related English, so no translator is required. All you’ll need is your banking information and your passport. You can bring RMB; no currency exchange is required. You just fill out a “Application for Individual Foreign Exchange Sale and Purchase” form, available at the front desk, and you are off to the races.
The fee was nominal; I remember it was roughly the same as when I Western Unioned an equivalent amount. Plus, I didn’t have to bother anyone back home to go and retrieve the money; it just went straight into my stateside account, which funds my visa card (the point of this thread: I also have not been able to get a local credit card, and have doubts as to its efficacy. However, I will try to get one at the link posted above).
Hope this helps someone.
I’ve been to Yafei (亚非牙科) to get my teeth cleaned. It ran me 400 yuan, which I found a reasonable price. The dentist spoke decent English, and I was in and out of there in an hour. It was analogous to a trip to the dentist in the west, but for a doable price. As it was so easy and efficient (not necessarily brutal, though), I’ll probably just go there next time. They also happily supplied me with ample fa piao-type paperwork for my health insurance.
One interesting thing about this dental clinic: it looks like some sort of church! The Church of Our Holy Wisdom Tooth. You go in and it has everything but the organ music. Come to think of it, they might have had something like that piped in. Strange, but I guess it didn’t detract from the overall experience. You never know what you are going to get …
