It is already past the midpoint of January 2025, so talking about the New Year might seem a little late. But with Lunar New Year still ahead, it does not feel entirely out of season.

Finally moving in

You never fully realize how much miscellaneous stuff you own until you have to move it.

The new place was renovated back in September last year, and since then I had been taking things over little by little. Most of it went in bit by bit on an electric scooter, packed into tote bags and backpacks. The original plan had been to move in when the lease ended in December, but the gas connection still was not ready. On top of that, we wanted to let the place air out a little longer, so we renewed the rental for one more month.

During that extra month, the gas inspection finally passed. We were told the meter would be installed and service connected before the Spring Festival, so at that point it seemed simplest to just move in. There was also another reason: the apartment we were renting had become increasingly hard to tolerate because the landlord was so stingy. She would not replace the toilet, would not install a proper floor drain, and the drainpipe under the sink was not sealed well. In winter, once the windows were shut, the smell indoors became genuinely awful.

My wife and I had first talked about moving on the 3rd, but then our daughter’s school had to use classrooms for senior-year exams. Combined with the New Year’s Day break, the school ended up giving students five days off. So we changed the plan and moved on New Year’s Day itself, taking it as a good sign: a fresh beginning for the year.

We booked a box truck through Huolala and moved a full load in one trip. There were still some smaller items left, so I made another run with our own car. At last, everything was in the new home. Since the gas still was not on, the whole family made hot pot on an induction cooker for our first meal there.

The exhausting end of a rental

I had heard stories before about landlords who inspect a place with a flashlight after the tenant leaves, looking for any excuse to withhold the deposit. In my own years of renting, though, the first two landlords I dealt with were both reasonable. When I moved out, I cleaned up, and that was enough. Aside from a few hard-to-reach corners, the places had been kept in good shape, and there was never any real dispute.

This last landlord was different. Just getting the place cleaned to her standard cost several hundred yuan. When I went over yesterday to settle everything for the last time, she first said the air conditioner was not working, then said the heating performance was poor. I told her the unit had already been in use for who knows how many years—how could she expect it to heat like a brand-new one?

In the end, she still deducted 80 yuan, using a few tiles behind the range hood that had not been wiped clean as the reason. It was thoroughly irritating.

Counting this one, I have moved house four times during my years of renting.

The usual cold after moving

For some reason, every time I move, I end up catching a cold afterward. Call it a pattern, call it superstition, call it a mild case of not adjusting well to a new environment—whatever the explanation, it keeps happening. This time, after the move, I was actually feeling pleased with myself and thinking I had finally broken the streak.

Then I caught a cold anyway.

Fortunately, this time it was very mild. Mostly just a sore throat, without much else. My wife brought out her trusted remedy: a copper Bian-stone gua sha scraper. After one session, my throat really did feel noticeably better.

At times like that, it is hard not to admire the practical wisdom passed down over the years. Gua sha does seem to help. That said, it is not some miracle cure where one scraping session makes an illness vanish on the spot. That would be unrealistic. A common cold is self-limiting to begin with, and even when people take medicine, the goal is usually just to relieve symptoms. In that sense, modern medicine for a cold and older home remedies are not entirely different in purpose.