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Students abroad get in deep at poor digs
By Wang Chao (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-01-22 10:21
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A friend from Philadelphia told me that another robbery had happened in his neighborhood, just two minutes' walk from the apartment he shares with two other Chinese guys.
"Well, I can't complain too much, it's cheap to live there," he told me.
Chinese students are becoming famous for their tight housing budgets. When I was hunting for accommodation in a small town in Ohio, I got a call from another Chinese girl. She had rented a one-bedroom apartment and suggested I share it with her.
"We can hang a curtain in between, so we can live in one bedroom," she suggested. I turned it town, not because I don't like cheap housing, but because I cannot bear a bedroom with no privacy.
Maybe Chinese students are getting too used to compact spaces before they go abroad. In university dorms in Beijing, usually four to eight students share one room, where the personal space is less than one square meter. In my dorm, each girl bought a curtain and put it around their beds. It was our only private space but obviously not soundproof.
I kept my computer, book shelf and more than 10 toys inside this confined area for four years.
So, when finally I got a private room in an American woman's house, I felt so happy. I guess most of the Chinese students think like me, if they are not going even further.
To us, money spent on housing is money we might be able to cut and save. To survivors of the smelly and compact dorm, a slightly smaller room is nothing.
Even when I am back in China, I kept receiving "living room for sublease" e-mails from the Chinese Scholar and Students Association. Whenever I see them, I feel a little sad. For poor students who depend solely on scholarships, spacious and comfortable housing becomes the first thing that can be sacrificed.
What can I say? I can only pray for a richer country where people have satisfactory housing and, when kids go abroad, I hope they can have a decent experience - although that seems like a distant dream at the moment.
