It’s time to pay the bills, but how and where?

Here is another post about the expat life in Shanghai. As you can remember from the previous post, “AYİ, the hero of your apartment” most of the houses have their AYİs and one of their responsibilities is to pay the bills (with the money you give her) in one of the department stores like “FamilyMart” which you can find in every corner…Literally in every corner. They are like mushrooms, you can’t stop them spreading around…By the way this can be a good case study.

Familymart

After your AYI pays the bills in one of the department stores, she gives you the receipt in a way that as if you didn’t believe her and needed to see a proof that shows she paid. When I was in Thailand, my AYİ was in her hometown so my bills were not paid…As I was really excited of backpacking and exploring, I decided to pay them when I got back…When I got back, I learnt that department stores do not accept your payment if you haven’t paid them on time. How nice, I learnt another thing…

What happens when you don’t pay the bills on time?

Well, everyone here has different stories. One of my friends said that he didn’t pay for the electricity all most 8 months and nothing happened. My comment was: “I am sure they have been busy with preparing a great surprise for you! Dude are you crazy? Go, pay it off, this is China, they may take all your belongings for not paying an electricity bill.” and we laughed out loud… Another friend told us that her electricity was cut when she didn’t pay it for one month. My comment was: “Were you living close to the government building?”…Of course, when I heard it I was a little bit worried…As I didn’t have any specific info, it was better to pay it as soon as possible. This time I had to go to the nearest branch of each of the government building.

State Grid is for electricity, Shanghai Gas is for gas, of course, the third picture is for the water. The staff in all three buildings can speak English so no need to worry.

Where to pay the bills

It was good for me to learn what to do in this kind of situation. Have you ever experienced anything like that? If so, write us so that we can learn from your experiences…See you in the next post!