Popup Chinese

Elementary: The Chinese Courier

Hank was a legend around the office, and for good reason. In just three hours he had cleared his entire afternoon of deliveries, and this in spite of the traffic jams that clogged the downtown core. And his secret? In today's Elementary Chinese lesson, join us as we delve into the art of the delivery. You'll learn how to get around town, tell others how to find you, and learn the secret tips and tricks that keep the courier business in China running.

rizzo

said on

January 7, 2010

Ok, now what is the difference between a 单元 (unit) and 室(apt)? Best I can surmise there must be a cluster of apartments clustered around a common lobby or outside door or something. Then each building has several entrances? Stateside I am familiar only with street adress + apartment number. We're probably a few hundred million citizens short of needing 单元 just yet.

Elementary

said on

January 8, 2010

@rizzo - the typical Chinese apartment building is about six stories tall and quite long. It has a lot of units (单元) each of which will be marked with a separate door leading into the building. Once you're inside each entrance, you'll find yourself in a stairwell that snakes up the building, with apartments leading off to each side on the various floor landings.

I don't think there's anything that really corresponds to this back home, although a reasonable comparison might be thinking of it as "Entrance A" or "Entrance B" in larger apartment complexes. In larger buildings with elevators, the 单元 design doesn't make much sense since you'll have a few shared elevators instead of many separate stairwells.

paglino9

said on

January 8, 2010

Before the 快递 can even enter the building, the have to ring the apartment number outside the front gate and yell “开门儿！-Ring Me in!”. Is there a specific word in Chinese for this device that has all the apartment numbers for the building listed on it that connects to a phone inside the apartment? Similar to a 门铃.

LanZi

said on

January 8, 2010

@paglino9

I think it's 对讲门铃（dui4jiang3 men2ling2），Talking Doorbells, because you can talk to the person outside through it. Or 小区门铃(xiao3qu1 men2ling2), Community Doorbells, because that kind of doorbells are usually set up for a communities or buildings, not for a single apartment, except that you are living in a really big house or villa, in that case I guess there would be a 可视门铃（ke3shi4 men2ling2），Visual Doorbells, that have cameras on them.

brett

said on

January 9, 2010

I am a kuaidi fan. The EMS postal service is quite reliable, but being able to call and having someone come right to your house to pick up a package is just too convenient at the price not to use it. Especially since going down to the post office means waiting in (multiple) lines and takes at least half an hour. I think for most expats it isn't worth the cost of the time lost.

nurflight9

said on

January 11, 2010

There's one nice thing about the smaller couriers. Two days ago a friend of mine mentioned that they got a call when they were out and they mentioned where they were, and then agreed to meet on a street corner. Well, that very evening, I got a call while on the way to a restaurant and decided to try the same thing, asking them to take it to the restaurant. The guy said okay, he'd be there in an hour. And, indeed, an hour later he shows up and delivers the package!