Sunday, September 17, 2006

Moving in allowance and moral obligation

We are given 1000 or so kuai allowance for setting up housekeeping and are asked to report on how we spend it. It may sound like a lot, but it's only about one hundred and twenty dollars, which still does go a pretty long way over here. The point is not to verify every expenditures, since a lot of things that you buy at outdoor markets you would not get receipts for. They just want to justify giving the volunteers that money. The honor system is at play, in part, plus they can inspect if the thing you said you bought is in the apartment. What they really want is to verify that the money is actually needed by volunteers. Supposedly, if half of the people do notreport spending the amount of money alloted, there is the possibility of the allowance getting cut in the future. So there is a sort of moral obligation to spend the money on housekeeping, because although it is possible just to keep the money for yourself, and certainly understandable why one would want to do this given our modest living allowances, if the money is not spent by a certain number of people future generations may suffer. SO I have made it an obligation on my part to spend the money on allowances that can be justified under the category of housekeeping.

Some of the things I've purchased with living allowance money:
1. Hot plate. I had one but it wasn't working that well (200 kuai)
2. Iron. Not sure if they will allow this but they should because we do not have dryers and so if we want any clothes to be nonwrinkled a drier is a necessity. (100 kuai)
3. Little light for bedroom and for desk. (80 kuai)
4. Rugs. Two for the bathroom, a rug for wiping feet when you enter and a non-slip mat for the tub (150 kuai)
5. Comforter. Sure, there are blankets here, but one simply does not know exactly what has been done with those blankets in the past. Best to start anew (150 kuai)
6. Toaster oven. Toast is not part of the culinary fare here, so one must search for either a toaster or a toaster oven. Especially since my only other cooking utensil is a hot plate, this seems a necessity. (200 kuai)

I think that brings it pretty close to a thousand. I've purchased other things like a dvd player (160 kuai), and a yoga set (100 kuai), but those will not be allowed under the moving in allowance money.