forget the porridge, momma bear … who’s sitting in my chair?
things are going crazy in hong kong.
my micro world is just fine, kids okay (although the triplets took a NAP this afternoon…what does that mean, a NAP?) …but economically, rents have gotten out of control.
our building is a fine example of this.
when we moved into 122 everyone said it was a great deal. and it was. for four years, we have enjoyed living in government quarters with a huge play area for kids, and like minded people as neighbours. unlike many hong kong residences, at 122 we are a real community. we have 122 block parties, barbeques, easter egg hunts, girls nights out, and good times. we are mostly like minded people.
so you can imagine how we felt one year ago when our rent was increased by 50 per cent. it was a blow to the solar plexus. 122 went from being the great deal of the century to a pretty good value for your money.
unlike some of our neighbours who got their rent increases around the same time, we didn’t even bother looking around. why bother, really? moving expenses, we demurred, the cost of travel to school each day, bla bla bla, but what it really comes down to is this is our home. this is the only place we have ever lived as a family.
we live within 300 steps of the hospital where the triplets were born. charles was in this flat the day i told him i was pregnant. this is the only home our children have ever known. these kids are their peeps. they don’t have nearby relatives, but they have andrea, susan, tara, katie, mel, weng, jennifer…and all their kids. this is their safe place. and mine for goodness sake.
so we paid the rental increase. and people kept moving into our building, talking about what a great deal it was, while the rest of us old timers lamented about "the good old days" when the rents were so much lower.
in the past two weeks i found out that the top floor of the building is renting for approximately twice what we are paying currently. today i found out that the fifteenth floor is renting for USD$7.500 per month. the unwritten code of our building says that rents increase $500 HKdollars per floor, which means that when our turn for rental increase comes up, we will be asked to pay about $55,000.(6.5Kusd)
that would be close to 40 per cent increase in what we are currently paying.
if we gave up our flat, which would be the logical thing to do, there would be few options of where we could live. the logical thing to do would be to go home, if we had a job to go home to. but we don’t have a home. so that is not an option.
so where to move to? this is something we are praying about. in the purpose driven life rick warren points out the futility of worrying about things we have no control over and asks how many hours we dedicate to such troubles. i am going to take a stand that i won’t (overly) fret about this. i am going to pray about it, and that is the best and only thing i can do.
but if we did move out, i would feel like the new occupants of 6a were living my life. imposters in tesstown. moving from room to room in a flat that was still mine. how do families leave homes? i know only bricks and mortar, but it is so much more. it is friends, it is love it is my kids joy coming home, changing, and racing off to play happily with their friends and try out different toys.
i don’t want to leave here.
but God knows that.
let’s see how it gets resolved.
