Bureaucracy and You (A Citizen's Guide)

Walking back to my apartment this afternoon - Chez Chris, if you will - I couldn't help but notice that a local policy had been enforced today. That is, no longer were the poor tenants of local businesses allowed to cover what amounts to their "back storage space" with metal sheeting and use it as their home, too. I noticed this because, well, said metal sheeting was littered all over the ground along with bits of brick, mortar... and who knows what else.

Now I could very easily turn this into a human interest tale - "the poor residents had their homes taken away" - but c'mon, that's too easy. I don't reach for the low apples... often. No, I'd rather focus on the rather silly nature of this decree.

Xialüpu, the area I live in, is not what we'd call an especially nice place to live. Were one so inclined, he could even say without too much of a stretch that the area is just this side of slum. I'll elaborate: it is several square kilometers of squat (>7 stories), drably uniform, enclosed cement squares - I mean apartments... tres Soviet.

This area houses the lower middle-class portions of society, including teachers, day workers, night workers, and foreign teachers who recieve their housing through their respective places of employment. Inside these domeciles lies an electricians/plumber's nightmare. Wiring that is faulty, wiring that simply doesn't work, single circuit-breakers powering half an apartment, water that mysteriously turns colors every few weeks.

Outside is really no better. The tiny courtyards are littered with trash all the time - a product of people who's life philosophy is "IMBY" (That's NIMBY, but without the N). What passes as a dumpster is, in fact, a tiny house-shaped enclosure with no way of closing or sealing off what is casually hucked in its general direction. This, of course, is compounded by the fact that these trash recepticals are picked through every few hours by men and women with pointy sticks. These people sift through the garbage, seeking their own form of buried treasure, and then leave the rotting remnants scattered all over the side walk.

The trash-sifters are close ecological cousins to the street-yellers. I've document this curious species before, but I think a refresher course is in order. They roam the streets in packs - along with sewer rats, semi-feral dogs, and abandoned cats - warbling their utterly incomprehensible crys of "really good prices for cans and bottles" for all to hear. All the time. Every day. No matter how hard you try to not hear them.

I'm not complaining... or at least, I'm not writing this for the direct purpose of complaining (though it is a fringe benefit). I'm merely trying to paint you a picture of the community I reside in.

So were these sheet-metal abodes kind of ugly? Yeah. But an eyesore worthy of the local government's full attention in lieu of any other of the multitude of issue I've listed? Ha!

The reason this is being "fixed" and not anything else? Anyone? Anyone? Oh come on, didn't anyone do the assignment?! The answer is "cost."

It's not a Chinese thing. It's a bureaucracy thing.

(CS)WC Out.

Aren't we all holding pieces of dying ember?