Expenses

Well I’ve now officially passed the one-month mark. I can mark my progress by announcing that yesterday Yazhen and I successfully ordered a delicious meal for four at a beautiful restaurant on West Lake to celebrate her birthday, that I rolled my eyes at the masses of tourists standing around on the bridges around the lake (of course I’m still more of an outsider than they are, but it’s nice to feel the distinction anyway), that I had nothing confiscated at the grocery store checkout this morning (though I didn’t buy any produce), and that I finally let myself eat fried rice again for dinner today.

Before I left for Shanghai, I took a look at my money situation. At the start I kept a close eye on where I spent my money, so if I were wasting a lot on one particular expense I would know, or I could consider buying a multi-use bus pass or such. I quickly decided that this was a bad idea, because I am not traveling but living here for a semester, and cataloguing everywhere my money goes will only make me anxious and unreasonably cheap. Still, I really haven’t been all that extravagant. I’m enjoying Hangzhou and getting out, and I even go for a cup of coffee to study once or twice a week. I’ve accepted taxi rides as an occasional necessity, and I’ve gotten used to watching a ticker on my desktop alert me to exactly how much I’m spending on internet time. I haven’t bought an electric scooter, or plane tickets for weekend trips, or daily lattes like some of my classmates (I can’t make that not sound judgemental, but it’s really not, I just have my own way of doing things and it involves not buying a 35 yuan latte every day).

Not including my Shanghai weekend (but to be fair, including the last two days of August), I figure in my first month I spent about 2000 yuan, or 260 dollars. This seemed pretty reasonable to me, especially considering that 500 went to a cell phone and five month phone plan. I’ve succeeded in passing an enjoyable and non-Puritanical month, and I am under budget. I was pretty proud of myself. And then I remembered that one of my teachers let it slip that his monthly salary is 3000 yuan.

3000 yuan! And then you need to pay taxes, pay rent, have some savings, etc. If most people live on maybe 1000 yuan or less spending money a month, where exactly are my luxuries? The occasional cab ride, a drink at a bar now and then. I don’t cook for myself, but I hardly dine five-star; I eat a lot at the cafeteria, and breakfast is usually yogurt or a roll. I’ve bought myself very little: a towel, some shampoo, some clothes hangers and laundry detergent, a pen case, notebooks, maybe a few other things. My weekend in Shaoxing put me back around 200 and I spent 150 on the soccer ticket. I’m not saying I have regrets about having fun around here, but it certainly puts things in perspective. All in all, you could definitely live on that little money for a month, but it would be a fairly simple life, with little entertainment and a lot of nights at home. Someone should tell Paris Hilton…could be a spinoff?