Apartment Tour and the Mid-Autumn Festival

Zhōng qiū kuài lè!
中秋快乐!
Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

Today is a national holiday in China, the second most important holiday after Chinese New Year.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is something akin to Thanksgiving or Harvest in the west and has been celebrated in some form in China for over 3000 years. Ancient Emperors would worship the moon in autumn to give it thanks for the harvest, whilst ordinary people would celebrate their hard work and bountiful crops.

Nowadays, it is a time for reunions. Families get together to enjoy dinner, often outside, under the light of the full moon. The festival falls on 15^th Day of the 8^th lunar month which is sometime in September or early October.

One of the most well-known and traditional elements of the festival is the eating of Mooncakes, often filled with bean paste or lotus seed. Houses and streets are festooned with paper lanterns. Here, in Guangzhou, they also like to eat river snails…but that might be a step too far for me.

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Annoyingly, I don’t get to see or experience any of it this time because I’m still stuck in self-isolation for over a week longer. Nothing to do with me. I’m fine. Fujian had a spike in cases at the end of my three weeks of quarantine there, during which time Guangdong changed the rules for my return. I can’t go to crowded places and definitely can’t go to work (shame) but I am allowed out ‘if necessary’. Oh well.

Despite my misfortune, I do still count myself luckier than some. I’ve heard of someone who happened to have been in Fujian on a short weekend trip but found themselves in a high-risk area. Now they’re back, they have to quarantine rather than self-isolate. The door to their home has been alarmed!

And now the part everyone has been waiting for…

The apartment tour

I live in the east of Guangzhou City in a district called Huangpu (sometimes romanized as Whampoa, like in Shanghai and Singapore). I’ve yet to explore the area whilst isolating, but I’ve been told there’s not much here. I’m basically in the Croydon of London…

On a good day, I’m around 30-45 minutes away from the city centre (Tianhe) by taxi and our nearest metro station is 10 minutes away, also by cab.

I am given the accommodation as part of my contract and the building I’m in happens to be on top of our sister school. Lots of staff are put up here and we have use of all the facilities such as the pool, gym, sports halls, terrace etc.. Interestingly, we also share the building with a hotel. In some respect, I live in a hotel, but the apartments are rented separately from it.

And here it is.

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My three bedroom, two bathroom apartment is south facing, so I have lots of light. The rooms are spacious and bright with marble effect tiles all over. The apartment comes fully furnished with aircon, washer/dryer, beds, tv, oven, fridge/freezer, and a microwave. Internet is already installed and is taken out of my salary each month along with water and electric bills.

It’s a bit bare at the moment, so I’m due an Ikea run to pick up a few finishing touches. It’s a big place for one person too, but I’m enjoying the space. It also means that I can have lots of guests over whenever people are allowed to travel to China.

I have no real qualms about the apartment itself other than having the washer/dryer being in the living room. It’s a quiet machine though. I think the apartment’s location is the major downfall, but I can’t complain too much. There’s a shuttle bus which takes us to and from work every day and the people I’ve met here so far have been very welcoming.

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On a day like today, though, whilst I’m still self-isolating, when I’d rather go out exploring, it makes me really miss my family and friends back at home. So, I’ll finish this post with the following for Mid-Autumn Festival. Sending you all lots of love.

Dàn yuàn rén chángjiǔ, qiānlǐ gòng chánjuān
但愿人长久，千里共婵娟
‘Wishing us a long life to share the graceful moonlight, though hundreds of miles apart.’

Don’t forget to leave a comment and feel free to forward the blog to anyone who might be interested.