You know that TV series where somebody decides to re-decorate a room of their friend/family member’s house while they are away.  Well, in Xining we have the opposite process.  I typically am a little leery to even leave our apartment for weeks at a time because I am fearful of how the place will be "remodeled" upon our return.  Not that we have sneaky friends who’d just love to punk us.  But China has a unique way of doing a number on your property–one way or another.  My new saying to sum this up, "China happens."  And yes, China did happen while we were away (at least to a small degree.)

Thankfully, for the most part, our apartment looked just as we had left it, except for one corner of our guest room…  Upon entering the guest room I noticed that the walls were pin-striped in dark brown streaks that had not been there before.  Near these brown stripes the plaster looked a bit corroded, bubbled in places, and crumbly.  It looked something (well exactly) like this:

The funny thing was that we had so many leak and radiator-related issues last year when we moved in that I had to ask myself whether or not the ugly marks and decomposing plaster was a new thing. 
Was it like that before?

I quickly remembered that though the walls had looked that bad at some point in the past, that was not their status when we left for the States.  This was a new "remodel" that was thrust upon us.

When we finally talked to our house-helper she informed us about what had happened.  Evidently, a radiator had burst in the opposite-side diagonal apartment on the floor above us.  Unfortunately, no one lives in that apartment or the apartment directly above ours.  Dirty and rusty water must have flooded the empty apartment and leaked down into the third-floor.  (I dread to think what it must have looked like across the hall from us, i.e. directly BELOW the apartment that flooded.)  Our house-helper even showed us where water had overflowed out the back porch window of the fourth flow and pooled on the ground below.

By the time our house-helper discovered this leak situation our guest-room had already dried out leaving only the muddy, loose-plaster remains.  Since she no doubt cleaned up most of the mess before we returned to Xining we’re not exactly sure how extensive it actually was.  Both our house-helper and her husband went to the management office of our apartment complex to complain about this situation, but of course since no one actually owns the apartment upstairs it’s not actually anyone’s responsibility.  Yeah, I know, it sounds crazy, but that’s how things work here.  The management office said it was outside of their control.  It made me curious how the leak was ever stopped in the first place.

So that’s the story of our extreme home makeover.  To be honest, if it had to happen in any room of the house, that’s the perfect room for it.  It doesn’t encroach upon our daily lives too much.  And if something bad like this had to happen while we were away, well, it’s not soooo bad.  I guess we’ve been here long enough to know what’s tolerable mafan and what isn’t.

China happens.