A Beijing Renter in a Partitioned Room: Her Past Year | 2018 Stories No. 3

"Just the word 'partition' means you can never fully relax," she says.

"Recording the actions and everyday lives of ordinary people," Walt Harrington said, "there is far too little of that in our trade. Such stories record how people act, what drives them, what they feel, believe, resent, hope for, fear, achieve and long for as they search for meaning and purpose in their lives. They help people understand where they stand in the world."

He once wrote a story: "The teenage boy in this family had killed himself two years before. I tried to explain to them the kind of story I wanted to write, how deep I wanted to go. The father listened for a long time, and finally said, 'So you want to know what I'm thinking when I pray alone in a quiet room.'"

Put most simply, Harrington said: how do people live, and what do they value?

The lives of each of us make up this world.

"2018 Stories" is a new column from QDaily.

Wang Xuan signed the renewal without much hesitation.

Rent was 1,760 yuan a month, plus an 1,183-yuan service fee, paid by the quarter. She handed over 6,463 yuan in one go through the Ziroom app — about a month's take-home pay at the time.

She spent a week thinking about it before she tapped pay. The Spring Festival had just ended and Beijing rents were climbing fast in early March. She checked what else was going for nearby, in the same Tongzhou district: "Ten square meters, a long way from the subway, and they've got the nerve to ask 2,500 — they'd love to get 3,000."

"(Renewing) came down to the price. It somehow hadn't gone up." Signing a month early also cut the service fee to 56% of the usual rate, saving her 1,000 yuan in all.

Wang Xuan is 26, fluent in Spanish, and mad about League of Legends. She has changed jobs three times in Beijing and now handles marketing and public relations at a Japanese-owned firm. Like most of the 7.943 million people who have drifted into Beijing, her life alone is built on a bedroom of under 20 square meters — or, as she puts it, "the biggest variable in my cost of living."

The anxiety that variable brings peaked at the end of 2017. Her job at a PR agency was breaking her down — "a foul temper," she says — and she had just called off a relationship of five years on the verge of marriage.

The apartment made everything ahead more uncertain, because it was a partition.

Partitions are a common form of renting in China's first-tier cities: a landlord or agent carves an extra single room out of a whole apartment to fit in more tenants. It is also called "N+1"; Ziroom calls it an "optimized room."

Centaline Property counted in 2015 that more than 60% of the new apartments on sale in Beijing had three bedrooms or more. Beijing's property market is built around selling, not renting, which does not suit shared flats: the living room is big and barely used, yet every tenant pays a share of it.

N+1 has never been legal in Beijing. In November 2017, as part of a campaign against non-compliant housing, districts and counties across Beijing cleared out and rectified rooms let as partitions by rental platforms such as Ziroom, and some were torn down by force. Ziroom CEO Xiong Lin responded publicly, promising compensation to tenants forced to move.

Wang Xuan's apartment has four bedrooms, and hers is the only "illegal" one — converted from the living room, a textbook partition. As the storm broke, her Ziroom house manager told her not to open the door to anyone who showed up to inspect the place, which meant she could be thrown out at any moment.

She pulled out her suitcase and packed some of her things, ready to go. As it turned out, no one had swung a hammer at her wall by the time she renewed in March.

The partition storm looks to have passed, but nobody can tell Wang Xuan whether her small room might still be torn out. So she goes on living there and counting on luck: "Just the word 'partition' means you can never fully relax."

By now what worries her is not the partition but the rent. In the eight months since she renewed, everything in Beijing has grown more expensive.

Counting rent, a UBS report puts Beijing fourth in Asia for cost of living, with Shanghai just behind. The two cities look much alike, but when UBS published that report three years ago, a furnished two-bedroom rented for about US$1,150 a month in Beijing and US$1,120 in Shanghai — roughly a quarter of what New York, then the most expensive city for rent, charged. By 2018 Beijing's average rent had pulled clear of Shanghai's, reaching US$1,523 a month, about 1.7 times Shanghai's.

Short supply pushed rents up. Figures from the China Real Estate Association show that after the Daxing fire late last year, the number of units available to rent across Beijing fell 56% between November 2017 and February 2018. As of November, renting in Beijing cost 93.14 yuan per square meter per month, 20 yuan more than in November 2017.

After the interview, Wang Xuan said on WeChat, half-joking, "Ziroom isn't going to track me down and raise my rent, is it?" — followed by a "hahaha" and a wry-smiling Pikachu sticker.

At the end of 2017 Beijing's official resident population stood at 21.707 million, 22,000 fewer than a year earlier — the city's first decline since 2000.

Wang Xuan is not part of that number yet, but leaving Beijing has become something close to an article of faith for her: "It's bound to happen. Beijing is not a place for me. I'm not going to sink everything I have into an apartment here."

We recorded our conversation with her as an oral account — about work, about love, about young people's Beijing:

From Chengdu to Beijing: mine is the "illegal" room

I graduated in 2015 and worked as a management trainee at a hotel in Chengdu, on very low pay. A senior colleague told me it was rather pitiful to stay in hotels. It's called a management trainee, but really it's a fancy version of carrying plates.

A classic example: you're carrying a tray of drinks, a guest walks over, the drinks spill. Your first reaction is supposed to be to tip them onto yourself and ask, "Are you all right?" — while you're the one drenched. That really is pitiful.

That colleague had studied abroad. He said, why don't you try PR, I can introduce you, but the job is in Beijing. My boyfriend was already in Beijing, so he was one reason I changed cities, but the main reason was the career switch.

I did eight months in Chengdu and came to Beijing over the May Day holiday in 2016. The first place I lived was a two-bedroom I shared with my then-boyfriend and a classmate of his, so I only had to pay around 1,000 yuan.

Our old lease ran out on April 20, and I had to leave for the Shanghai auto show on the 19th. On the 16th a Ziroom house manager took me to see a place. I said I had nothing to pick over and nothing to haggle about — I'd sign as soon as I saw it. He also showed me a backup, a "legitimate" bedroom with a small balcony.

I got the lease signed on the 17th, and on the 19th I picked up my suitcase and went to the Shanghai auto show. When I got back I had movers haul my things over. It was all very tight.

It's a three-bedroom with a living room, and I'm "the living room" — the place became four bedrooms. Once you come in the front door there's no space left, just a corridor. The master bedroom has its own bathroom and a girl lives there, and there are two smaller bedrooms.

Their three rooms are legal; mine is the "illegal" one. What made me happy is that the subway is right outside the compound — extremely convenient.

My roommates and I get along really well. The girl in the master bedroom works at Dongsi Shitiao and I work at Liangmaqiao, so we leave at the same time every morning — 8:30 — and ride the Batong Line together, keeping each other honest about getting up early. The guy in the other room is warm-hearted too, always rounding people up for a meal.

I'm fairly happy with it. The Batong Line is way out, but it beats a ten-minute walk after you get off the subway — the walk is worth two more stops anyway.

My roommates make me feel that at least there's someone to talk to when I get home, and that I don't have to spend too long outside in the wind and rain. That's what this apartment gives me, even though it's a partition.

Just the word "partition" means you can never fully relax

The partition demolitions, as I remember it, happened at the same time as the RYB scandal. All I knew about the Daxing fire was that a lot of people had died. It never occurred to me that it had anything to do with me.

One lunchtime, while I was at work, a friend sent me the article that first went viral on Moments. The headline was something like "Earning such-and-such a year and still treated as low-end population." It was about someone paying several thousand a month for a Ziroom place whose wall was taken out with a sledgehammer. I looked up and asked the colleagues around me who else was living in a partition. Out of six of us at the table, apart from one person who owned a place, all five of the rest were mixed up with partitions.

We were all miserable for the rest of the afternoon. That night I called a close friend and said I might end up with nowhere to live — no job, no boyfriend, no home, that sort of thing. Worst case, I'd just leave Beijing.

After that, I searched Weibo at least twenty times a day for "Ziroom partition" and "Beijing partition," hoping to catch some hint of a reprieve. Most of what came back was panic.

I didn't join any of those groups. I don't want other people's panic spreading over to me. I trust reliable sources and I can search for myself. Those groups are full of brainless people whipping up a mood and plenty of others following along just as brainlessly. I hate groups like that.

But I think one sad thing about young people is that we're slowly losing any wish to speak up for ourselves. I almost never join in on any comment thread on public social media. If you can't change it, stop thinking about it.

I have a cabinet just for my figures — more than twenty League of Legends ones, large and small, plus Pikachu and Lego and so on. I keep them where I can see them. They're like guardians.

I used the occasion to give the place a big clean and put all the figures away. I was afraid of leaving in a mess if it came to that, and of having them broken — a lot of them are limited editions.

They guard me, so I figured I'd better guard them.

My roommates were good about it. The guy in the smaller bedroom said, "If they really take yours out, I'll hang a curtain and sleep in your room and you take mine."

Then word came that the crackdown would run until December 31, and I waited for that day with my heart in my mouth. My partition wasn't touched, and I let out a small breath.

Honestly, to this day nobody has confirmed that it won't be. It's no exaggeration to say that from the first news of the demolitions until now, not one announcement has said whether N+1 is legal or not.

There was even a time, around May or June, when my house manager messaged me: whoever knocks today, don't open the door. "If they knock and nobody opens, that's the end of it. If you open it, that's your bad luck."

I've never thrown out my packing boxes, and the anxiety has never let up. As I said, I have never felt this apartment would let me live in peace. I still think of it as: if they make me go, I go; if they don't, every extra day is a day I've won. This apartment has never given me any security.

I had meant to quit at the end of the year — I was even ready to give up my bonus. Then this happened, and I felt I really couldn't quit with no money in hand. So I decided to hold on.

Just the word "partition" means you can never fully relax. The one thing is that the rent didn't go up, so my cost of living hasn't changed for now.

I learned to slow down, and to accept being a cog

Renewing the lease happened to coincide with a change in my career.

I left my old company in March without a next job lined up. I wanted to settle the job question first and then see whether I needed to move.

The small startup I joined was at Chaowai SOHO, so the distance was OK, and once I weighed the cost I decided to stay put.

I'd been at the startup about a month when my current company came across my résumé online and asked me in for an interview. I didn't have an offer yet, but I decided to quit the startup first so I could prepare properly.

That startup didn't pay our social insurance and housing fund contributions, and the new company would only start from the following month, so I covered two months myself, April and May, more than 2,000 yuan a month. The financial pressure was heavy. I didn't tell my parents until the offer was confirmed.

The new company is on the client side. The first thing you understand there is that you're no longer running flat out the way you do at an agency. The client side runs on relationships — what you produce is meant to be seen by your boss, your colleagues, other departments. So I put more of my energy into that.

That's the difference between client and agency. On the client side you have to compromise. You adjust your attitude, reset yourself to zero, and accept that you're purely a cog and won't play any decisive role.

So my whole pace slowed down. I leave at 5:30 sharp and almost never work late. Once there was a problem with an email because of me, and by the time IT sorted it out it was already 6. My manager said, "Never mind the past two years — I haven't stayed till 6 in years."

As for promotions, the company's rule is explicit: a review at most once every two years, unless there's a clear business need.

I've quietly accepted all of that. What I get is a slow pace of life and not much pressure at work — and, correspondingly, more free time.

So I exercise, and I want to study something. I let my Spanish go for a long time and want to pick it back up. I want to learn another language, Japanese, which will help at a Japanese company. These are practical calculations.

My old colleagues at the agency got promoted once or even twice a year, and thinking about that can leave me pessimistic. But the client side also builds your ability a lot — you see things you never saw at an agency.

What I want more is a feeling of ease inside. Being able to do what I want to do — that's security. When I was at the agency, after work I didn't even have it in me to look at Spanish. I had nothing left for anything, not even for taking off my makeup.

That doesn't mean I'd mind breaking the calm I have now. If a project and a brand I really loved came along, I'd take it without hesitation, however busy the work.

Take the apartment. I'm living well on a bit over 1,000 yuan now, but if one day I have to move and rent a 2,500-yuan place, then I'll rent it. Nothing can break what I have now, short of a truly destructive blow — a serious illness, say, or some other misfortune.

Anything else — a stumble in my career or my finances — I don't count as a real problem.

If one day I lost the meaning of life, that would be insecurity. Right now I'm making progress, and I think that is the meaning of life.

"Beijing is not a place for me"

My ex and I had been together since my freshman year. He was a year ahead of me, and by the time we split we'd been together more than five years.

We had reached the point where marriage came up. We were both in Beijing, and our families felt we should sit down and talk it through.

He came to Beijing to work first. I came at the end of April 2016, around the May Day holiday, and we spent about ten months together in Beijing before parting at Chinese New Year in 2017.

We ended up living differently. He worked in media, running WeChat and Weibo accounts, on duty 24 hours a day. I'm strong-willed to begin with, and he'd sit with his back to me, posting to Weibo at his computer.

Eventually I said maybe we should spend some time apart, that this wasn't good. And even then he was still posting to Weibo. Looking at his back, I thought: there's no point.

The agency left me with a foul temper. My boss had a foul temper, and I'd dump all my negative energy back onto him. I was out of line, and he had no patience left to absorb it and wanted to hit back hard. Which is how you get that scene — me talking in complete earnest about rethinking our relationship, and him typing his Weibo posts in complete earnest.

Before that I'd never dared to think about breaking up. Everyone says you break up when you graduate; we graduated and didn't, a year passed and we still hadn't, and people told us, "I believe in love again." That made me feel I owed everyone an account of ourselves, and that's a burden.

Once I'd decided, I asked my mother, "Would you rather hear that I've broken up, or that I've got divorced?" She understood. I don't want to marry carrying my parents' expectations or my friends' expectations. Marriage should be something you want with your whole heart.

I don't want to say "by 30 I have to be such-and-such," either. That boxes you in. I'm only 26, one year past 25, and when I sit quietly and think about it, I still have a lot of potential.

Society is much more tolerant of women now. My old boss was a woman past 30 and unmarried, and she thought career always came first. I haven't yet met a man who can compete with my drive at work, so I can't say whether I'd end up like her.

I've loosened up now, and I have very little anxiety. I've been reading psychology lately, and one idea I agree with is that you have to build your self-knowledge deep in your subconscious to keep your mind from falling into disorder.

I used to want the outside world to approve of me. Now I think keeping myself happy matters more than pleasing other people and winning their approval.

That change probably only came after I got to Beijing.

But I will definitely leave Beijing. It's bound to happen. There's no way I'll buy here. I don't have the patience to pay income tax for five years and then hand over a down payment of more than a million yuan.

There's no reason for my parents to smash open all their savings to cover a down payment for me. I'm not that kind of person.

And I have no idea at all which city I'd go to for good. My parents keep asking where I'll go, and I honestly don't know.

Wherever I go I'll be renting anyway. I'll just pick up my suitcase and leave.

I stay in Beijing for now because my contacts are here, even if I don't have many friends. You get used to life here, and work is going smoothly at the moment.

As for the exceptions — something going wrong with the apartment, work drying up and nothing turning up however hard I look, some reason forcing me to stop working for two months — those, I think, would be what triggers my leaving. I don't see any of them right now.

If I moved to another city for some future boyfriend, I think the condition would be that the center of gravity of my work can't change. Love can claim 50% of your life; 60% at the outside, no more.

My security comes from getting better at things. Moving somewhere purely in order to marry you is not what I want. I can't lose myself. Following love to the ends of the earth only works if a sense of self comes along.

But as I said: Beijing is not a place for me.

At the interviewee's request, Wang Xuan is a pseudonym.

Cover image from Pixabay