Vanke – Our Home in China

Today is the beginning of our one-week spring holiday and a beautiful spring day it is. Instead of going anywhere, we have decided to sit tight in our cozy condo and vegetate. I have added a few more emails to my subscription list from various sources. If you are reading this, and don’t want to be, let me know and I will unsubscribe you asap. I am also in the process of moving some older articles from some of my other sites to this one so apologies to those that are saying, “Why the hell is he posting this article again?”. Please bear with we as I continue to make small changes to this blog site, and attempt to make it a little more user-friendly.

Bloggers are an emotional group. Every time I notice people are actually reading this stuff, I get all warm and tingly inside and a shiver runs down my spine. If I notice an increase in followers, I jump up and down with excitement. It’s all about the numbers when you have a website or blog. It is a legal drug. If you know anyone who might be interested in my little tidbits of Asian life, twist their arm to sign up on my mailing list. I promise they won’t get any more then a one line email each time I post a new blog entry.

Over the last few years, I have been asked about our living conditions here in Wuhan. As I strolled down to the local market and back today, I took a few photos of our surroundings. I have finally broken down and written a short blog to describe our harsh day-to-day existence! Five or six years ago, our condo/apartment complex did not exist. Today it sprawls over God knows how many acres and houses several thousand residents. This is the story of China! What used to be fields in the recent past now is now a residential community surrounded by light industry and technology firms. Nancy and I watched our current condo being built as we strolled through this area when we first moved here four years ago.

Vanke (pronounced Wonka as in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory!) is now a household name in these parts. This is only one of many gated communities built by the same real estate company that are scattered throughout the city and across China. We are pretty self-sufficient for daily needs with several grocery stores, hairdressers, fruit stores and a variety of other retail outlets scattered throughout the “village”. This single condominium complex houses more people than the small town I left in British Columbia.

The complex is complete with a recreation center, tennis courts and an outdoor pool. It is not unusual to see people congregated throughout the public seating areas on a sunny day and it is definitely a family oriented place. There are one hell of a lot of little kids walking around the place at any time ,and babies and mothers from one end of Vanke to the other. It is not an adult-only community as people love to have in North America. Monthly rents range from a couple of hundred dollars per month to five or six hundred. I would say the average is closer to $300-350 per month. Purchase prices are in the one or two hundred thousand dollar range. You can check out the cost of living in Wuhan on my updated post at The Cost of Living in China

An army of gardeners looks after all the greenery year-round and our local “guards” strut their stuff at the gates and elsewhere. Nobody takes them seriously but they really do try to be important and certainly run a tight ship as far as who gets in and who doesn’t. If you hear non-stop honking, you know that some car has been blocked entry for some reason and has created a line-up of irate drivers behind him. I have to add that the honking never really stops, it just gets more or less frequent, depending on the time of day!

Anyway, I thought people would enjoy an inside look at our little corner of the world here in China.