Hi guys. In today's video, I figured I'd show you what my apartment complex looks like in Wuhan, China, because there's so many different amenities and things going on, even though it's super quiet here. I've never actually lived in an apartment complex in the States before, but nevertheless, here's what a middle-ass apartment looks like in Wuhan, China.
So, our apartment complex was built in 2020. It's a typical third generation complex, which basically just means it's more of a modern style. It's located on the outskirts of Wuhan, right next to this beautiful lake.
The last time I checked, the price for a 1,200 foot three-bedroom, two-b apartment here is around $190,000. But just a few years ago, it could have easily cost up to $300,000. Mingdo and I don't own our apartment, though, and just pay $530 a month for rent.
We used to live in an older and smaller apartment that was just $300 a month, but after I got pregnant for Goose, we debated for a long time about whether we should upgrade to a bigger space here, and now looking back, it was really worth it. There are two main gates in this community. This one is the main gate here and it has a guard on here 24/7.
Uh, and like most middle- class apartments or newer apartments, there is a facial recognition gate that lets you into the community. But since I don't hold a Chinese national ID number, I can't register for facial recognition, but I have a fob on my phone that lets me in. At the guard station is also where our packages are delivered.
Although it's always open, the packages are really safe here and nobody ever really steals anything. But the only problem is that the delivery person usually just throws it haphazardly and you'll have to spend a long time digging through everything to find it. At every community, you're going to find a map on the outside near the gate to see what building is what.
You This is mostly for food delivery people to know which building is where. When you first come in, you're greeted by our creepy caterpillar. Our management company put this up to be cute, make a cute little garden, but just within days of putting him up, um, kids in our community stole his eyes and one of his antennas.
So now he just sits blind and half deaf, greeting us into our community. Poor thing. In older first or second generation apartment complexes, cars are usually parked right on the ground level around the buildings, which can be chaotic and dangerous for kids.
But third generation complexes are all equipped with underground parking. So underneath is this huge parking lot that connects all of the apartment buildings in the complex. Let me start from in here.
Actually, if you have a car, you can pay a monthly fee to park on the underground parking. Um, but a lot of people don't want to pay, so they usually just park on the street here. Um, and they risk getting a ticket.
But getting a parking ticket is actually cheaper than the monthly pay, so they're willing to take the risk. But sometimes this gets really annoying because people will park in the bike lane, sidewalks, and even the fire lane. Besides cars, scooters are one of the most common vehicles here in China.
So, in the complex, you also will find these kinds of charging stations where you pay by scanning the QR code, and it costs like 50 cents to fully charge your bike. And this is the raffling poster to encourage people to pay their management fee. In China, every apartment complex is run by a management company that provides security, cleaning, and maintenance and gardening, similar to the HOA in the US.
So, every homeowner will have to pay a monthly management fee. But sometimes people refuse to pay the fees. So, our management company makes different raffling events to give away air fryers or microwaves to attract people to prepay for the whole year upfront.
People who work for the management company are given free residence as a part of their benefits. And people who decide to take this benefit live here in this one on the bottom floor of this building here. And usually the people who decide to do that are single.
So, not only are they co-workers, but they also are roommates as well. And this is one of the three places in the complex where you can dump your garbage. It's nothing too special, but as you can see, there's different colored bins for different types of garbage.
A few years back, the government made a huge campaign to get people to separate their garbage into five or seven different categories, but it failed miserably because people found out that most of the trash was actually just dumped all in the same place by the trash company anyways. So slowly people stopped. However, even though we live in a multi-million yen middle-class complex, a lot of grandmas still will collect cardboard boxes and bottles to sell for some extra cash.
Once a week, a recycling person comes to collect these recyclables. And all the grandmas will bring what they've collected down to weigh and sell them. Even though they're paid just 7 cents per kilogram, they basically see collecting and selling these recyclables as free money.
So, to them, it's more of a why wouldn't you perspective. There's one water station where some residents may choose to buy filtered water that they just refill their own container since the tap water can't be drunk straight from the tap here. And this is what Minga and I used to do for years until we got a kitchen water filter which has really saved so much on time.
And under this building here is another large community space that I want to show you guys. Most newer complexes also have a playground for kids. One of ours is located here and it's pretty small considering how many families actually live here, but I really like that it's toddler friendly.
And even though it's like really dark and there's more mosquitoes here, I kind of like that it's inside because I can take Goose to play here even if it's on a rainy or extra hot day. And next to the playground, there's also a reading area with tons of communal books. It's a bit messy and the books are a little dirty, but I think it's a really cute idea.
There's also a few tables for people to mingle or hold different events, though I've never seen anyone actually do that here. And the whole second half of the community space is devoted to what they call culture walls. This wall is called the golden quotes from President Xi.
And another one is showing the 100red-year history of the Communist Party. And this one is also politically driven. I see this guy all the time, but I don't know who he is.
Another interesting thing that I discovered after being here for almost 2 years is that there's actually a hidden public toilet, but I don't think many people know about this either. And it doesn't seem like anyone ever really uses it other than the security guard. And for a lot of apartment complexes like this one, it's really common for small businesses to be built into the ground level under the apartments.
So, I wanted to show you what those look like. Okay, so to the left of the front gate here is all the businesses down here and then the apartments are just right up there. We have a Chinese medicine clinic, a convenience store where they also have a ma jang table right in the front there where they just play ma jang all day.
This is a restaurant, a dance studio. This one is a reality tea. This one also is like a This is a weird a weird sashimi place.
Yeah, they just sell salmon sashimi. And then this one's brand new, which you can tell by the all these flower bouques on the bottom here. It's a ping pong place.
So that's interesting. We have the gym here. This is the front entrance of this gym.
And then there's a tea place there and some kind of tutoring center or something else down there. I think usually in this kind of middle- class complex, you'll find a lot of businesses that specifically target housewives like beauty salons that give special facials, massage parlors, gyms or yoga studios with special PTs, and even weight loss coaching. So over here is where the lake is, and then there's a lot of storefronts here.
This one is a bar or a distillery. I guess they make their own beer. Oh, acupuncture.
Okay, I think that's new. I never seen that before. This one's another bar.
And they also sell barbecue at night and you can eat out here and have barbecue. That's pretty fun. And then we have like a salon and massage parlor.
This one is a coffee shop. It's really cute. There's a cute little rabbit in there that we like to go visit.
And then there's a It's not a pet shop. It's like a a grooming parlor. And then they also do like doggy daycare in here.
And Goose loves to see the dogs. He's sleeping in the sun. And then we have a Chinese medicine shop here.
And then next to that is another coffee shop that just recently opened up. We haven't been here yet. And then this building here, whole building is a restaurant.
Yeah. And all of this is like really nice because you just can drink your coffee or eat your dinner and look out on the lake here. And the only practical business that we've got here is the supermarket.
It actually used to be a snack shop, but nobody ever really shopped there. So slowly, they've turned into a half snack shop, half market. And just last week, they even set up a live fish tank outside to sell seafood.
All right, and that's what my middle class apartment complex looks like here in Wuhan, China. I hope that you enjoyed this video, and I'm looking forward to see what you guys think or what you learned in the comments. And as always, I'll see you in another video.
