The past nine months have afforded me more free time than I've had in years (and far more than I hope to have again prior to, or even in, retirement). It was a time to develop hobbies. While I wish I could say I learned to juggle, or took up the offer for belly dancing lessons from the teacher at my gym, the truth is… I developed an obsession with National Public Radio. Which is how I stumbled upon a recent interview with author Meghan Daum, whose book, "Life Would be Perfect if I Lived in That House," chronicles her hobby—obsessively hunting for the perfect living space.
The interviewer, Rebecca Roberts, said in her lead, "It's a uniquely American phenomenon, this house lust, this fantasy of the perfect life in the perfect environment." I glanced at my surroundings and mused at what these uniquely house-lusty Americans would think. My kitchen has two food preparation surfaces: the top of a 4-foot-tall refrigerator, and the (broken) lid of a (functioning) washing machine. I cook on a hot plate that sits on top of my microwave, and I wash my dishes in a sink conveniently angled to elevate the drain. I don't lust for a house, but most days I do lust for an oven.
With Daum's interview in the background, I landed on this Foreign Policy story about China's housing bubble. Its author debunked Roberts' claim in the first paragraph. "Last fall 80 percent of respondents to a China Youth Daily online poll said that home ownership was a prerequisite for happiness." In the unlikely event that Americans ever were the only people in the world who associated happiness with square footage, it certainly isn't true anymore.
The article reports that China's successful young generation, beneficiaries of the spoil-inducing (and its less desirable cousin, unreasonably high expectation-inducing) one child policy are struggling to attain homeownership, the last rung of the success ladder they're told they deserve to ascend uninhibited. On the flip side, wealthy Chinese with a lack of places to invest excess cash are holding multiple, empty apartments now poised to crash in value.
About compulsively changing houses, Daum said, "I really felt that where I lived was a direct reflection of who I was. My house was really a mirror of my soul. And until I found sort of the right mirror, I just wasn't going to be settled." Young Chinese women seem to agree. They're unlikely to pursue a man whose virtuous soul isn't reflected in his walls and his wallet.
Scanning the rooms of my charmingly filthy, disintegrating hovel, with its perpetually broken furniture and a variegated wooden bathroom door shedding soggy splinters in my entryway, I'm inclined to disagree with the notion that where you live is in some way a direct reflection of who you are. Then again, I signed up for this dwelling. More unbelievably, perhaps because it's the first place I've lived on my own (or because I have impossibly low standards… or because I can listen to npr for hours without annoying anyone), I know my busted toilet seat and blown outlets will always hold a revered place in my storied housing history.
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