Sunday, 12.24.06

Okay! We're officially between apartments.
We've got a few hopefuls lined up for viewing late next week, but we've learned not to get our hopes up until we actually walk into the door.

(Uh-oh~ Alert! Alert! I'm in a bitchy kind of mood.)

The reason apartments for rent are just downright appalling is that a large portion of the people in Taiwan don't take pride in what they are or what they do. Businesses here produce cheap, low-quality products because they don't take pride in what they produce. Consumers buy those products because they either don't have taste or standards (Oh yeah! And because they're cheap). You can buy a pair of DK"Y"N jeans for US$20, but it shrinks after one wash. Housewives flood to the guy yelling into his microphone selling electric juicers for US$6 only to find out later that it stops turning and smoke comes out of the motor when they're juicing the second half of an orange. Teachers here can get away with reading straight from the textbook because whether they put effort into lesson-planning doesn't make a difference. Students don't think about what they learn because mere memorization is good enough for the purpose of studying. For both the teacher and the student, doing the absolute bare minimum is sufficient enough for the ultimate goal of learning: passing a standardized test.

What does this have to do with renting apartments, you ask. Landlords here will tell you that the flakes of paint that come off of the wall above the electric socket when you walk by are from previous water damage. It's nothing bigger than an eye sore. They'll offer to slap on a fresh coat of paint to cover it up and pray that you're stupid enough to believe that there's absolutely no problem at all. "Balcony" sometimes means a passage way wide enough for one person to slide by. More often than not, however, "balcony" means a dingy and dank space in the back where mold flourishes. However, landlords will happily inform you that you're welcome to hang your laundry there. "2-level townhouse apartments" offer upper-level bedrooms with ceilings so low that you have to get down on your hands and feet before you hit the top of the stairs, but "look how high the ceiling in the living room is." Finally, "furnished" could mean that you're about to move into a junk yard. However, landlords will look at you in the way as if s/he expects you to kiss their feet this instant for their kindness and generosity. Landlords here don't take pride in their own property, and they'll do the bare minimum sufficient enough to make the problem disappear. The problem is, just because you can't see the problem doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist. Making the problem disappear doesn't mean that you've solved the probem. DKYN will never be DKNY. A juicer wih cheap parts won't do the job. Sitting at your desk with a textbook open in front of you doesn't mean that you're studying. Reading what is written on a page doesn't mean you're learning it. Memorizing isolated vocabulary items doesn't mean that you're gonna be using those words in your natural speech any time soon.

(Okay, so I've strayed off track. Now what?)

I've been a renter long enough to know that the game with words plays an important role in the real estate industry on both sides of the Pacific. In North America, for instance, "cozy" often means "small", and "quiet" sometimes means "far away from civilization." It just seems that the words Taiwanese landlords/real estate agents choose to use tend to be more..... um....... exaggerated, ...... far-stretched, ......... overstated, .......inflated, ..... far from the truth..... or simply,.... as Bill put it, full-of-shit!