I spent my time in China in other people's houses. Starting in Shanghai, and moving to Beijing, then finally, the bulk of the summer in Ningxia, I stayed in, and visited, a lot of homes. I saw the homes of expat families, homes that looked exactly like they would in a gated community in the States, and I saw the nice, but smaller apartments of single half-pats and middle class urban families. Then I went to Ningxia. There was a country home with a three-car garage and there were the houses without plumbing, or even an outhouse of their own. In the city, there were big apartments and small apartments, new, old, warm, cold- I saw them in every style, shape, and size. These here are pictures from Tien Tien's house. She turned 15 in August, lives in the countryside, and we hung out together for much of the summer. I taught her some English and in turn, she was my 'cultural broker,' to borrow a Fadiman term. Here, she's waiting with her friends for a few more classmates to show up for her birthday. They caught a ride with her aunt and went to the park in the city for her birthday. She's the one in yellow, trying to dodge out of the way of the camera.
This was one of her bedrooms. The second floor of the house has three bedrooms. While her parents claim one, Tien Tien's older sister and her switch between the two rooms depending on mood and weather. They are by no means well-off, or even middle class, but it's one of the nicer houses I'd been to in the countryside.
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