It's the little things

Weather: slightly warmer than yesterday, but still chilly
Temp: 3-15
Exchange rate: RMB1 = R1,41
Getting a handle on things: I quite fancy having a big, red double door as a front door.

Today, there are a few, small things that bug me about China, mostly it's just one thing that manifests in different ways. I think this is what the Chinese think: "You're a foreigner and we it's our god-given duty to rip you off". I have a couple of examples to justify this theory.

1. I'm trying to get our cats to China. This is pretty straight forward from SA. The fun and games begin when they get here. Until very recently no quarantine was required for pets coming into Beijing. Now there is a 30-day quarantine period. Which is fine, but you're not allowed to go and see your pets, nor are you allowed to check out the facility where they will be held. Which makes me very uncomfortable, but it seems that there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. But that's not my problem. My problem is that if you're willing to pay about RMB10 000 per cat you don't have to leave them in quarantine. Not even for a day. So for R30 000 I can pick my cats up from the airport and bring them straight home. In China, as in SA, that's A LOT of money and most labourers would hope to earn that in a year. See, somebody figured out that foreigners would pay this kind of money and then found a loophole and bang, you're in business and making money off foreigners.

Example 2: we've found an apartment that we like (Frikkie not so much, but it's convenient) and we can afford. The price started out at RMB8000 a month, but after the Olympics the property bubble has burst and the price came down to 7000. We liked the apartment at 8000, we like it even better at 7000. Small snag is that we only want to start renting it from the first of December. But, as they say; A bird in hand... and keep in mind that this all happened this week, so it's not as if the landlord had any takers for November anyway. The landlord then says: great, but if you only want to take it from 1 December the rent is 7500. My response: NO. Back and forth. back and forth. There are loads of apartments available at the moment, so it's not as if we're hard-up. Fine, the landlord will take 7000, but do we want a receipt? Yes, we need a receipt for tax purposes. To get a receipt will cost 350 a month. Why? Because now the landlord has to declare the income from his flat in order to get the government to issue a monthly receipt and guess who's paying part of that tax? Yip, Foreigners Els and Labuschagne.