Radical Eclecticity

The Changzhou Apartment

Originally uploaded by mattlavery

I live on the fifth floor. In Chinese, 我住在五层的公寓. In china, though, the ground floor is not numbered. You don’t take stairs to get to the second floor, like you do in the states; you take the stairs to get to the first floor. That means that, every day, I descend five flights of stairs to get out, and climb five flights of stairs to get home. I do this at least once a day, but normally two or three times. I find this particularly interesting because Dad expressed concern when I moved into an apartment on the second floor in Kissimmee (which only involved climbing one set of stairs to get to) after my accident. When I get back to the states, those stairs will be like a little stairway-vacation. I am a little bit winded when I get to my apartment, but not in an “Oh my goodness I’m about to die!” way, just in a “Wow, that’s a lot of stairs,” way. The apartment is cool, though. I posted some pictures of it on Flickr.