Put Your Guests in the Hallway
It’s amazing the things you learn from your old landlords. For example, did you know that the 103 square meters that are officially included in the floor space in my old apartment included the hallway and the lobby on the first floor? It’s true. It may even have included the courtyard for my complex. Of course, my old complex had about 1000 apartments. So it’s not like my apartment area was quite as private as I had originally believed.
Apparently, according to Chinese law, a courtyard down the road from an apartment counts as part of the apartment. The consequences of this are pretty amazing, if you think about it. Why, you could own 10,000 square meters of grassland in Inner Mongolia, tie it to a hovel in Beijing, and rent out a 10,030 square meter apartment. Right next to the Forbidden City. Why, you could have a four-bedroom, four-bathroom apartment in Chaoyang…with three of the bathrooms and bedrooms in Hubei.
Okay, okay, I admit that I neither know American law, nor Chinese law. It is entirely possible that these tactics are acceptable elsewhere (which would not make them right), or that in China the floor space you count needs to be in close proximity. And it’s true that I was too stupid to realize that 25 square meters of my apartment were not accessible without walking outside for a whole year. Yet, I still somehow feel cheated. Was I allowed to wall off the areas of the hallway that counted as part of my apartment? If you live a hutong (traditional single-floor building neighbors–okay, that was the worst definition of hutongs ever, but I don’t care. And incidentally, hutong can’t be pluralized, because you can’t add an ’s’ to the end of Chinese word. This brings me back to my main point that I always digress. In fact, I need to start this sentence anew because you can’t have a parenthetical statement with four sentences in it and continue the original thought.)
As I was saying, if you live in a hutong, does the public bathroom count as part of your property. Does this mean you can tell your aiyi to go in and clean it? Can you install a magazine rack?
The lesson is, as always in China, whenever you buy or rent anything, ask a ton of questions. Otherwise you might discover a year later that your third bedroom was in the hallway.
Share This
dezza responds:
Posted: March 10th, 2008 at 9:58 pm →
flat measurements are calculated the same way here in HK. so it’s not only a mainland Chinese phenomenon. i wonder if things are like this in taiwan as well?
this is all within the law so it smacks of government-business collusion.
Pappi responds:
Posted: March 10th, 2008 at 10:08 pm →
The Communist Party is the master capitalist.
nichtich responds:
Posted: March 10th, 2008 at 10:13 pm →
There’s two ways of calculating the space: construction way or living way. Apartments are sold in construction way. That includes hallway, elevator room, and many other things. Why? Because nothing is free. You shouldn’t punish buildings with adequate public spaces. Why would they build it if they can’t charge for it?
Larry responds:
Posted: March 11th, 2008 at 1:47 am →
I think the Chinese Communists are trying to demonstrate what Karl Marx said about capitalism and capitalists to prove that Karl is right on the money.
But you must look at the brighter side. You can have your in-laws visiting and stay thousands of miles away.
John Guise responds:
Posted: March 11th, 2008 at 9:16 am →
Yes I heard before that this is a common practice. I knew that apartment layouts include the hallway space directly outside your door but not the lobby. That’s nuts.
J.
McG responds:
Posted: March 11th, 2008 at 10:15 am →
Real estate square footage in NYC is often calculated with a pro-rated share of the common areas.
Chris Devonshire-Ellis responds:
Posted: March 12th, 2008 at 1:35 pm →
It’s common practice throughout Asia and has been for decades. It’s nothing new, and was largely the cursed invention of Hong Kong based property developers. However - you do want to watch out for unscrupulous landlords who inflate the size of the common area to get more rent out of you. The common area rental you are charged should measurable by the actual size divided by the actual number of tenants using it. So for example, if your floor has four apartments on it, the common area for the immediate landing space should be divisible by four, and you pay that. For areas such as ground floor communal lobbies, by the entire number of apartments, and so on. Pain in the arse, but nothing really to do with greedy Chinese communists.
Turtlewind responds:
Posted: March 13th, 2008 at 12:13 pm →
I’m going to completely ignore the main point of your post and try to out-pedant your pedantry. It’s perfectly fine to pluralise “Hutong” to “hutongs” because it is not a Chinese word. “胡同” is a Chinese word, but “hutong” is an English word whose origin is the Chinese word “胡同”. Almost all English words come from one foreign language or other, and if you insist on always applying the gramatical rules of the source language for every word you find, you’ll never be able to say anything.
Josh responds:
Posted: March 13th, 2008 at 12:43 pm →
I acknowledge your point but reject it out of hand for two reasons:
1. hutong is not an English word, even if foreigners (in China) use it as such
2. we don’t say “datums,” we say “data”
mike responds:
Posted: March 17th, 2008 at 1:38 pm →
McG is right that this happens in NYC too. Not sure the origin. See blogger Josh Marshall’s account of trying to get real estate space in Manhattan: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/152538.php.
By the way, words borrowed (crisis, formula, cactus, kibbutz) often keep their foreign plurals (crises, formulae, cacti, and kibbutzim). But borrowed words just as often do not. How often do you, following the Italian rule, order one pepperoni pizza and two cheese pizze? Or when talking about Rome, following the Latin, say that the masses lived on bread and circus? Or that, following German, that in China it’s easy to get jobs at English kindergärten? Of course we say pizzas, circuses, and kindergartens.
These are examples of dictionary-recognized loan words, but at one point they were just ordinary foreign words used in everyday speech. I would suggest that when speaking English, using English grammar–even imposing it on foreign words just introduced to the language–is fine. English doesn’t have an academy. The dictionaries follow usage. So if English speakers are using a word in a certain way, it’s correct.
If I was in Beiing, I would suggest that we talk it out with a big group. I hear that there is much Hutong, and many streets of Hutong have nice places to get a few pizze.