Buying furniture

In the morning I went out with Tan and Lin Hong to look at furniture. Next door to the furniture place was a shop that sold tea tables carved out of a single piece of wood. I really wanted to go in and have a look but the ladies had sofas and wardrobes on their minds. We couldn't find a suitable sofa (it is arguable that we need to get one now as we're leaving in two weeks), so we looked at wardrobes as we'll need at least one to leave some clothes in this year. As the ladies found one they liked (I wasn't going to enter in the debate for this - a wardrobe is a wardrobe in my book), my only input was to ask the width of our bedroom. Lin Hong said it was 360cm. As we already had a bed and two side tables bought from this shop, I was able to measure them and calculate what space would be available for the wardrobe. It transpired that it would fit, just, but that you wouldn't be able to open the left hand side door. So I told Tan that it was a nice wardrobe but that it wouldn't fit unless we put it opposite our bed rather than on the side.

Happly couple in the house before shopping for furniture

What happened next is one of the reasons I'll never understand some people. I thought I was trying to help by working out beforehand any potential problems with the purchase, but it was seen as though it was my fault. So I was told that because the bedroom was so small that we'd have to put up with the compromise of one door not being openable and we'd have to reach around. This is wrong on so many accounts. Just get a smaller wardrobe, or put it in another place, or move the bedside table. But no, it's like you cannot change your idea of where something will go even if it doesn't fit. I didn't have the heart to argue, but equally I didn't want to have a crippled wardrobe, so we left it and went to look at a shoe cabinet. Well this should be simple. In Chinese homes, like many East Asian homes, it is normal to take off your shoes on entry and put on a pair of rubber slippers. Normally you leave your shoes on the floor, but if you live there you probably have more than one pair, so you keep these in the "xie gui". This is normally about 3x3' near the door entrance. But with our house as you step in on the left is immediately the door to my study and on the right is the living room, and about two feet of wall before the kitchen doorway. We decided that it would be nice to put the xie gui on the right sticking out so that there was some sort of corridor leading to the bedrooms area, but the problem was that the back of the xie gui would be visible to all sitting in the living area, and I wasn't happy about that as it was rather unsightly. We then found something perfect for the job; a cabinetty like thing with space for shoes, that had drawer openings on both sides, and display cabinets for stuff like bottles of wine and flowers. It looked made for the job, and it was nice that two women and a man could agree on something.

The other piece of furniture that is obligatory in new apartments here (at least in Pingguo), is a long tv stand (even if most modern, flat tvs now are wall mounted). These are normally 8-10' in length, by about 20" in width, and accommodate more than just a tv. They normally have shallow shelves and drawers to keep things like phone chargers and whatnot. I wasn't too fussed in this regard; we had enough space on either long wall, and the decision would mainly be which wall to put the sofa against and which wall to have the tv on. The other accompanying pieces of furniture would be a coffee table, and a sofabed and table/chair for my study.

So we went to the other furniture shop in the blazing late morning heat to look at sofas. The one Tan likes is a fake black and white leather that is much more tasteful than it might seem. As is the case with almost all sofas here, it is an "L" shaped affair, with and extra armless cushion like part that can be put anywhere. Unfortunately, though this had been on discount the last time Tan had seen it, it was not now. The last time, she had rung me to ask if we could borrow the money from Lin Hong to buy it as it was on special offer, and I had said yes. I don't know why we didn't get it at that time, and I should know better than to ask, but the long and short of it was that it was now nearly 10000 kuai, and not the 5000 it had been last week. Well, after some negotiation, which included the shop assistant ringing the sofa factory, it appeared we could get it for 5800. During these negotiations I kept a stern face; it is not good to appear too eager when trying for a discount, but Tan read it as apathy on my part, and even though I said we could get it it ended up in an argument for some reason. I'd had enough, and I needed to get on with my work so I drove off, picked up a bite to eat and went home.

The faux leather sofa we both quite like

Around 4.30pm I got a call from Lin Hong, who said we'd been invited out to eat and she would pick me up at 5.30pm. Just as well I didn't have a meeting then. By gone 6pm I hadn't heard anything but as I started to dial the phone rang telling me to come on foot to the seafood place near our house. Fair enough - I'd been there many a time, but it was not that place I found out, and I spent the next 5 minutes on the phone with Lin Hong giving me directions about which way to turn, until I came into her line of vision. I must say she has excellent eyesight - either that or I am a particularly conspicuous tall, pale-skinned, fair-haired foreigner, ah right.

I'm not sure who it was that invited us but he seemed keen on drinking a few beers, something I couldn't share much as I had work to finish later. Tan and A Ni were there but not kids. There was no talk about the furniture fiasco and we had a nice meal before I politely left to finish off my last working day before holiday!