Airbnb - from Beijing

Airbnb - from Beijing

 Just reflecting on a beautiful experience of hosting my Airbnb guest from Beijing for 30 days. It could have turned out to be a nightmare as Stella was a bit lost on arrival as it was her first visit to Uk , actually her only other visit outside China was two weeks in Thailand and had been in covid lockdown for 3 years on her university campus. Also Stella could not cook but had brought her rice steam cooker with her. But it turned into an opportunity to help someone in need.

I offered a bike for her to get to work which was about 2.5 miles away or she could have walked. But we worked out how to use the local buses 411, 261 West Molesey to Teddington , using contactless cards and it takes Oyster. Actually I learnt a lot about public transport routes and costs.

So, I decided that the only way that her stay was going to work was that I cooked an evening meal for her. Even on the long weekends that I was away, meals were left in the fridge or freezer so that she could heat with the microwave. She did teach me how to cook steamed custard, using eggs water and olive oil, a bit like creme brulee . Easy and delicious to make. Most evenings we ate together and I enjoyed hearing her views on various topics.

Taiwan - no outside internet access in China , and she has always thought that Taiwan would be part of China. My news comes from Western media so it was interesting to have a different insight.

Work -

Stella : In Beijing we work 996.

Arwyn: What does that mean?

Stella: start at 9 am,finish at 9 pm , 6 days a week . Some work 997

Arwyn: I guess in the UK we work 955

Stella thought seeing a pregnant lady at work was strange. In China , companies don’t like to hire women because they don't want to waste money on lost pregnancy time. It was difficult for Stella to get employment in China .

Food

Stella uses her own Chopsticks for noodles but a fork for other dishes. She loves rice and brought her own rice cooker which took 30 minutes to prepare a bowl of nice basmati rice. Generally she doesn’t like spicy food or chili food. Food must be heat hot so anything coming out of the fridge would be reheated including salads. Therefore, ice cream was a no no apart from that scorching day . She does not like lollies either . Too cold. More for me . Yum.

The first meal was a good salad , lettuce , new potatoes , boiled eggs and cold chicken in addition to the normal salad stuff. But she does not eat cold food and I had to heat the potatoes, egg and chicken in the microwave .

The second was a pork chop dinner where I taught her how to peel vegetables. I liked the comments that parsnips are white carrots , Brussels sprouts = small cabbages and courgettes are funny cucumbers.

Stella thought we ate fish and chips every day. Amazing the view of our eating habits abroad

The pasta she would normally eat is the long ones (spaghetti) . and with tomato sauce. So penne and green pesto were different !! but very delicious.

She wanted to eat Chinese hotpot which I said we could cook here. But she doesn’t have a large pot as it's a meal you cook for a large number of people . Her recommendation for a restaurant/meal is “Haidilao hot pot”. I've googled it and i'm looking forward to going to Chinatown in London for this hot pot.

Eating habits. I heard of slurping when people eat, and my mother used to tell me not to slurp when eating. However, it’s true. Especially when eating cornflakes with milk. I didn't mention it and accepted it as a cultural difference. However, near the end of 30 days the noise of the slurping during mealtimes did bother me.

Politeness

I have a carpet in the front room, and she walked around the carpet. I asked her why? “she didn’t think she was allowed on it “ . Now she walks on it but was polite with removing shoes at the door and slippers upstairs. On the clothes theme, Stella hand washed her clothes every evening.

I tend to go out doing activities every now and then and in the first couple of days she said “You are going out again !? “, “You go out a lot !“ . After a weekend away Stella was happy to see me return to the house and sat in the kitchen on her laptop for company. She did say “ she was lonely and happy that I came back because she missed me . On my final weekend away she came home from work early , “ to see if I had returned .Aww.

I like learning some words or phrases in other languages . So we started off with “good morning “ in mandarin. I’m sorry this was so difficult that I have not progressed onto good night . When I said ooo it should have been ooooo. There are four ways (tones) to pronounce the letter o. I’ll stick with Welsh , it's easier.

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When Stella arrived she had brought a gift of loose tea which I have from time to time . But the gift was having her as a guest in my house . It’s been a different Airbnb experience and I think I will miss having her around . She has found accommodation with a Chinese family and is looking forward to preparing Chinese food . “ but your food has been great and delicious “.