What happens when you sit on a Chinese dining chair?

That's right - IT BREAKS.

I think the ubiquity of this hazard is not widely appreciated because, at least in most foreigners' apartments here in Beijing, the dining set is essentially for display purposes only.  Eating-out options are so numerous and varied and convenient (and ridiculously cheap) that most people seldom or never dine at home.  I'm a bit of a freak in that I do try to cook for myself at least 50% of the time.  But mostly I just fix myself simple pasta or rice dishes - stuff that I can eat out of a bowl, from a lap tray, while I sit on the sofa watching TV.  And I never invite people round for dinner.  Aside from an ex-girlfriend who used to cook for me about once a week, I think I've only been invited to someone's home for dinner twice in the 8 years I've been here.  Dining furniture just doesn't get used.

In my last apartment, only one of my six dining chairs got moderately regular use: the one my landlord used to sit in to count his rent money once a month (later, once a quarter).  That one broke.  Well, it didn't fall apart completely, but the joints were loose, and it started to sway and sag alarmingly.

A few months ago, my swivel desk-chair broke (I'd had it nearly 7 years, and it had survived two moves, so I can't really complain about that).  Since then, I've been using one of the four dining chairs in my new apartment for working at the computer.  And guess what - sagging joints, terminal wobbliness, imminent collapse.

I've just made a quick inspection of the other chairs in the set, and I'm quite sure the only reason they're still looking relatively solid is that no-one has ever sat in any of them.  They're all equally poorly assembled: the joints just don't fit together very securely.

[On a related note, why is it that in a Chinese sink it is the hot tap that is almost invariably labelled in blue and the cold one in red?

And why is it that in almost every kitchen in every apartment I have ever seen in China, at least one of the kitchen cabinets will have its doors sagging off its hinges (and/or the cabinet itself will be coming away from the wall)?

I reflect that my bar-owner friend Joseph prefers to do almost all the handywork in his place - the shelving, the light fittings, even the wiring - himself, rather than entrust it to Chinese workmen.  And when he has had to get Chinese labourers in for some larger task, he's usually had to supervise them every single minute - to make sure they know what they're supposed to be doing, and how.

It often seems to me that nobody knows how to do anything properly in this country.  And, worse, no-one seems to care.  There is almost no 'Made In China' product I would consider wasting my money on (things made for the local market, that is; we are seeing the beginnings of some quality control, the beginnings of some effort, in the stuff they manufacture for export).  And I certainly wouldn't ever buy a house here - the interior, at least, would be falling apart within 5 years.]