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蚂蚁搬家 (Ant Movers) moved our stuff from Xi'an to Kunming in 2005. They are an expensive (7000RMB), highly regarded company, so we were rather shocked to find that most of our furniture arrived marred and filthy dirty. These photos show some of the damage: marred surfaces, metal that was carelessly left to scrape along the rusty sides of their truck, bent table legs, and an unprotected cushion with long streaks of rust from the inner walls of the truck (even having it washed in Kunming didn't get the stain out). Since all the damage was "little" we didn't file for reimbursement. The damage to each item was too small to demand replacement, but it was just that there was SO MUCH "little" damage!

The damage seems to be the result of a combination of several things. We were told that they would provide sufficient padding materials, but they didn't. Most of the padding was our own sheets and blankets. They also didn't seem to care about the weight distribution, since heavy things were placed on lighter things, without any support or padding. The wheels on our microwave cart were completely crushed. Then there was the road--most of China's highways are pretty smooth, but there are lots of mountains between Xi'an and Kunming, and things took quite a beating. The van was also apparently not air tight, because a thick layer of fine dirt was on everything. Once the dirt got onto the furniture, the poorly protected surfaces naturally scratched each other.

Soap was useless in removing the marks and mars shown on these photos (and on just about everything that was not inside a box). The blemishes remain as a permanent reminder of Ant Movers (蚂蚁搬家) and the damage they brought about as they moved our things to Kunming.

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