The door is solid metal and has a big deadbolt for security. It is the safest front door I have ever had. In China, you take off your shoes when you enter someone's home, so that you do not track in dirt from the streets. The rack beneath our coats is for slippers for the occupants and guests. The water cooler provides fresh drinking water and also provides hot water for your tea.
Here is the hallway side of our front door. Our neighbors have decorated for the Chinese New Year. We don't know what the banners say, but almost everyone has some of them on their doorway....probably to bring them good fortune. You can see our nice little moon window in the upper left corner of this picture. We'll give you a better view below. We don't think that the three letters on the doorway (HAM) are a comment on the occupants.
The moon window, as promised. Deanna liked this and wanted to make sure that you all got to see it. Many of the windows and doorways in China are round. The glass window you see through the moon window is our living room window.
These grills cover the radiators in all the rooms. They are made out of some light wood, like balsa wood. The pictures are different on each cover...this one is a tree with birds. "They are really neato-beato," says Deanna. We cannot make out the Chinese characters...when we find out what they say, we'll let you know.
The sofa and chairs, as well as the table, are made of the same wood as the closet in our bedroom and straight chairs. The upholstery is leather (sorry Becky and Rachel). You can see the quilt that everyone signed on our sofa. On the table, in white, is the controller to our heater/air conditioner. I (Lee) think that is neato-beato. )We have to set the temperature in celsius, but we've figured out that 20 degrees celcius is 68 degrees fahrenheit....so we're OK. The floors in the apartment are tile throughout.
The TV is a Sharp model...pretty cool. We get one English channel and a whole bunch of Chinese channels. We get basically news and Discovery channel type programs. They are interesting in that they tell us a great deal about Chinese culture and history. The number of Kung Fu movies is pretty amazing. You can see the heater/air conditioner in this photo. The radiators do provide some heat, but I believe our hosts thought that their guests would be more comfortable if they had more heat. The door leads to the bathroom and kitchen. Mom, you can see the Arizona Highways calendar beside the TV.
Copyright 2004, Dr. Lee Williams
Last Modified: 18 January 2004
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