I finally have a new apartment. I was about to write a blog entry about the negotiation process which seemed pretty entertaining at the time, but pretty uninteresting now, so I’ll pass on that. Instead, here’s a picture of the final signing of the documents, which took forever! Way longer than I’ve spent during the closing ceremonies of buying or selling a house.

(l-r) Signin’ papers (my landlords are sitting on the far sofa), a view from the deck.   See between the two large apartment buildings?   There’s a tower sitting up on a hill.   That’s called Yuan Bo Yuan.   I haven’t been there yet, but will check it out soon.   To the right is a funny looking tower.   That’s the China Merchant’s bank tower.   The first tower to the left of the Yuan Bo Yuan Tower is a prominent building next to where my temporary apartment was located.

My landlords are nice folks, always smiling and offering me tea.   The poor husband wanted to show me the view but didn’t realize the glass doors and walked square into the glass panel.   He never lost his smile though, but dang that must have hurt!   He knocked his head good.   They speak zero English so communicating is limited with my small vocabulary.   There were so many domestic words that I realized I didn’t know while talking with them.

I arrived at the apartment to drop off some sheets and spend the night. But, while I was wandering through the living area, I heard an odd squeaking sound. “What is that??”, I thought. It didn’t sound like any “normal” apartment sound. Then I realized what it must be: rats! Not just ordinary rats, but the famous rats from the Guandong province, aka “Canton”. Ugly and huge brutes they are, Cantonese rats.

(above) I wonder if they look like this.

Immediately thought of a famous line from The Insidious Fu Manchu where Nayland Smith is captured by Fu Manchu and is about to endure the “Six Gates of Joyful Wisdom”…

“Cantonese rats, Dr. Petrie, the most ravenous in the world . . . they have eaten nothing for nearly a week!”

(above) The Insidious Dr. Fu

Well, that was an immediate downer. I returned to my temporary housing that night depressed and stayed for a couple of more weeks until my goods finally arrived. In the meantime, I got in touch with the landlords. They brought their young son with them, who was maybe 15, but had pretty decent English. They said that they’d never heard any rats above in the time that they lived here. But, just to be sure, we called up one of the maintenance workers who brought a step ladder and a flashlight. We popped one of the ceiling tiles in the kitchen up and peeked in. There was no sign of a rat or anything running around up there. It was clear of any droppings, bedding, or any sort of evidence like that. I did notice that the living room was sealed by concrete from the kitchen. We didn’t hear any rats then either.

Of course, when I finally returned to the apartment to receive my things and get settled in, I heard the sounds again. “Dang, that doesn’t sound like anything that’s not alive”, I thought. I imagined that maybe it was some sort of metallic little cart with a squeaky wheel, but I couldn’t really reconcile that sound. I also thought I heard feet skittering around too. They didn’t weird me out like they did that first night so I just ignored it. I’ll just have to keep my eyes and ears open for more nocturnal visitors.