Yueji Garden

Yueji Garden

Yueji Garden was located at the Guiping road, near the Jinjiang Disney Land.

Here I stayed for about another 6 months ( July 2000 - Jan 2001) and my mother also came for one or two months.

In June 2000, encouraged by the good future of my business, I not only purchased a new printer but I also decided to move to a new, and better place for living and for work as well. This new apartment building was formerly built for people with overseas chinese relatives some 15 years ago and was considered as very good quality earlier. The surrounding area was quite quiet, traffic was not too bad - many bus lines and the metro station was about 300 m distant. Many supermarkets and retail shops were just close to your doors as always in Shanghai. You don't need to go as far as 1 km to get every thing done.

The apartment has two rooms and a hall. The rooms were air-conditioned, and with a balcony you can see the traffic down in the road. The bathroom had a shower, with a gas heater from Germany. The kitchen was full equipped, only the space was too narrow. The apartment belonged to a couple in the early 50's. The man was a factory engineer and the lady, a self-made businesswoman.

For that convenience, I paid 1500 yuan a month, plus the commission fee for the real estate agency, and a contract guarantee fee of the same as a month rent.

My mother came here in Sept. 2000 and lived there for a month only and left me alone again in October together with her granddaughter and grandson. When she was there, she was sick at times, because of her erysipelas on her legs. It was very severe and I saw her in great pain. We immediately sent her to a nearby hospital and the Doctors have to gave her injections and prescribed some medicine. It took her a week to recover from the illness.

Another incidence pushed me to make decision to go to Hangzhou - once I traveled to Beijing for a negotiation with Taike, I left my mother alone for nearly ten days. Now image, my mother who knew nobody, is also illiterate, how can she live alone in an apartment ? When I came back I found her so miserable !!! I vowed I will never let her alone - the only way is to go to Hangzhou where my brother-in-law, his daughter are there and my sister came to join them every two weeks. Because she works in the hometown, some 80 km from Hangzhou.

I was also getting more and more unhappy with the landlord. Apparently they left me a bad heater. It can't be fired of very often, and the pipes of the hot water was leaking. They came to repair twice, but the problems remained. I also wanted to change my lodging. It was too expensive too. Apart from the 1500 yuan a month rent, I have to pay the service fees - cleaning, security etc which amounted to 60 yuan a month. When there was no income, all these became a heavy burden on my shoulder.

And now, some "encouraging" news came out from the mouth from my brother-in-law in Hangzhou. Of course, the news were wrong. He told me people with an university diploma can transfer their Hukou - a certificate or booklet of the right of staying in a place permanently which also states who else are living with you - without the necessity of having a job before, a significant progress in the eyes of chinese who have no right to move from one place to another freely as stipulated in the UN Charter. Because I didn't want to be employed by someone, and also because I realized there was no one who was able to hire me (Hangzhou is a city with little foreign presence), I didn't expect to secure a reasonable job for me, but I would like to try myself or open my own business.

Unfortunately, none of the above proved easy.

You cannot transfer your Hukou unless you have a job there - the situation only changed a year and a half later

You cannot easily own your own company unless you went a extremely and costly procedures

You can't find a job unless you are willing to reduce your living standard to some ten years ago.

But now, in Shanghai, it seemed to me everything is finished. No business, no job and most importantly, it was unable to take care of my parents when I am away for a trip. Caring for my parents was, is now and will be my most important mission as their son.