In article ,
"Stormin Mormon" wrote:

"Harvey Specter" wrote in message
eb.com...

"Doit Yourself" wrote in message
...

So when these affluent Chinese home and appartment
dwellers hire someone to perform some work, install
some new fixture, etc - where do the hired contractors
buy the materials / fixtures / tools ???

Most Chinese people live in tiny little company owned dormitories. They
have nothing to remodel.

So now you're bottom posting, since one of your top-posts screwed up an
attribution? Did you bump your head or something?

A friend of mine just spent 7 years living in Beijing. He and his wife
bought 3 apartments there, and "remodeled" all of them. I put remodeled
in quotes, because brand new apartments there are unfinished. Basically
just roughed-in structures. Plumbing, electrical, drywall, flooring,
interior doors, lighting, is primitive to non-existent when you move in.
At one place, there wasn't even a bathroom door when they bought it. He
insisted the seller install one, and when he came back, the new bathroom
door was clear glass.

The Chinese people, by and large, have never seen plumbing and wiring
concealed inside walls. Bathrooms are wet rooms, with a shower head in
one corner and a drain in the middle of the floor. No tub or shower
enclosure at all. The toilet *is* the hole in the floor.

Virtually every time my friend hired a "tradesman," the work was done
wrong, and he made them rip it out and start over, under his
supervision. They've never heard of levels. They don't know you're
supposed to use a wye instead of a T in drain pipes. Etcetera ad
infinitum. So, I guess they don't need Home Depots, because everything
is so primitive, and they seem fine with it like that. Even paint is
rare to unheard of.