The bill system is quite confusing, thankfully it seems fairly forgiving as well. For each utility bill you have to pay you have to go to a separate place (dì fāng, 地方), after a certain day (tiān, 天), of a certain month (yuè, 月). Some bills are due after the 10th of the month and some after the 20th of the month. Some are due on odd months and some on even months. Some other types of bills are only collected once a year (nián, 年). It's annoying to have to pay it all up front, but at least it is easier to keep track of.
We are thankful that we took care of our phone (diàn huà, 电话) and internet (wǎng luò, 网络) for a whole year at a time. Not only did we get a better deal, but we don't have to worry about it getting shut off anytime soon, like happened our poor neighbors who got the months mixed up.
Everyone's electric bills on the door |
But they don't post water bills for some reason. And to make matters more confusing, we have both a cold (or regular) water bill (shuǐ fèi, 水费) and a solar hot water (tài yáng rè shuǐ, 太阳热水) bill. These are due at different times, and you have to go to different places to pay them. This is because we have to pay water company the cold water bill (shuǐ fèi, 水费) and the apartment complex a management fee (wù guǎn fèi,物管费) for the solar hot water. They manage the solar heaters that are on the roof of the seventh floor of our buildings. The solar water heaters do a really good job heating most of the time, but if it rains for quite a while, you may want to wait for a sunny day to take a shower.
Electric office guard likes Andrew |
Fascinating! How very different!
ReplyDeleteMom Rugg