Beijing, Real-estate development in Jiugong

 

The area near the new Jiugong subway station, in the southeast of Beijing, is bustling with building activity. Several new high-rise residential compounds are almost completed and elsewhere workers are preparing building grounds for more real-estate development. The area used to be farmland. We visit the remnants of, what once was, a farmers’ village.

 

 

The one and two story houses of the village have to make way for another development project. Two third of the village has already been demolished, but 40 families refuse to leave.

 

 

 

 

We talk with Mrs. Li Shulan, almost 79 years old, who has lived in the village for the past 54 years. Mrs. Li is a mother of four daughters and two sons, who still live with her and her husband. The project developer, she tells, offered her family two apartments as compensation, but according to her that was definitely not enough to house her family. Apart from that, the apartments offered where of very bad quality and they were destroyed after the case was exposed in the media.

 

All houses in the village should have been demolished by June 2011 according to the developer’s planning. However, 40 families decided to stay because they were not satisfied with the compensation.

 

Mrs. Li tells that in June last year the water and electricity has been cut off and the public toilet has been demolished. For water they now go to a neighbor across the street and instead of going to a toilet they use the open land around the village.

 

Because of the harsh conditions, Mrs. Li wants to move. “What else can I do?”, she says. How and when she can leave is not clear.

 

Mrs. Li was born in the Shandong province. 54 years ago she and her husband moved to Beijing to work as a farmer at the Nanjiang farm. At that time, there were so many farmers that the farm could not provide enough accommodation in the dormitories. Thus, they built their own house in the field and settled down.

 

Now she and her husband, who stays in the house because of health problems, are retired. Together they receive a pension of 4,000 RMB per month.

 

Mrs. Li tells that there are many old people living in this village and a lot of them got ill due to the sanitary conditions and the worries about the future demolition of their houses. A few of them passed away in the past year.

 

When we leave the village we meet some people who live in the neighborhood. They explain that many of the residents in the village have spent all their lives living here, they invested a lot of money in their houses and feel it is hard to leave all their memories behind. Next to that, the compensation fees are too low.

They tell about an old lady from the village. Every night so goes to her daughter’s house to sleep and early the next day she returns to her old house in the village.

 

We also hear a lot of muttering about the rich people who drive poor people, who lived their whole life in this place, out of the city. They express a resentment against the rich, and the preferential treatment of government officials, that we have come across a lot lately.

 

 

 

 

 

The area near the new Jiugong subway station, in the southeast of Beijing, is bustling with building activity. Several new high-rise residential compounds are almost completed and elsewhere workers are preparing building grounds for more real-estate development. The area used to be a farmland and we visit the remnants of what once was a farmers’ village.

The one and two story houses of the village have to make way for another development project. Two third of the village has already been demolished, but 40 families refuse to leave.

We talk with Mrs. Li Shulan, almost 79 years old, who has lived in the village for the past 54 years. Mrs. Li is a mother of four daughters and two sons, who still live with her and her husband. The project developer, she tells, offered her family two apartments as compensation, but according to her that was definitely not enough to house her family. Apart from that, the apartments offered where of very bad quality and they were destroyed after the case was exposed in the media.

All houses in the village should have been demolished by June 2011 according to the developer’s planning. However, 40 families decided to stay because they were not satisfied with the compensation.

Mrs. Li tells that in June last year the water and electricity has been cut off and the public toilet has been demolished. For water they now go to a neighbor across the street and instead of going to a toilet they use the open land around the village.

Because of the harsh conditions, Mrs. Li wants to move. “What else can I do?”, she says. How and when she can leave is not clear.

Mrs. Li was born in the Shandong province. 54 years ago she and her husband moved to Beijing to work as a farmer at the Nanjiang farm. At that time, there were so many farmers that the farm could not provide enough accommodation in the dormitories. Thus, they built their own house in the field and settled down.

Now she and her husband, who stays in the house because of health problems, are retired. Together they receive a pension of 4,000 RMB per month.

Mrs. Li tells that there are many old people living in this village and a lot of them got ill due to the sanitary conditions and the worries about the future demolition of their houses. A few of them passed away in the past year.

When we leave the village we meet some people who live in the neighborhood. They explain that many of the residents in the village have spent all their lives living here, they invested a lot of money in their houses and feel it is hard to leave all their memories behind. Next to that, the compensation fees are too low.

They tell about an old lady from the village. Every night so goes to her daughter’s house to sleep and early the next day she returns to her old house in the village.

We also hear a lot of muttering about the rich people who drive poor people, who lived their whole life in this place, out of the city. They display a resentment against the rich and the preferential treatment of government officials that we have come across a lot lately.

Beijing, Bringing in the Wine

 

Demolition, in an area that has to make way for new development, reveals a wall of a former living room with a poet of the famous Chinese poet Li Bai (a.k.a. Li Po):

 

BRINGING IN THE WINE

 

See how the Yellow River’s waters move out of heaven.

Entering the ocean, never to return.

See how lovely locks in bright mirrors in high chambers,

Though silken-black at morning, have changed by night to snow.

…Oh, let a man of spirit venture where he pleases

And never tip his golden cup empty toward the moon!

Since heaven gave the talent, let it be employed!

Spin a thousand pieces of silver, all of them come back!

Cook a sheep, kill a cow, whet the appetite,

And make me, of three hundred bowls, one long drink!

…To the old master, Cen,

And the young scholar, Danqiu,

Bring in the wine!

Let your cups never rest!

Let me sing you a song!

Let your ears attend!

What are bell and drum, rare dishes and treasure?

Let me be forever drunk and never come to reason!

Sober men of olden days and sages are forgotten,

And only the great drinkers are famous for all time.

…Prince Chen paid at a banquet in the Palace of Perfection

Ten thousand coins for a cask of wine, with many a laugh and quip.

Why say, my host, that your money is gone?

Go and buy wine and we’ll drink it together!

My flower-dappled horse,

My furs worth a thousand,

Hand them to the boy to exchange for good wine,

And we’ll drown away the woes of ten thousand generations!

 

 

 

Beijing, The JinLin Bathhouse

 

Jin Jun works in a convenience store in the LaiGuangYing area and Si JiaGui works in a bathhouse next to the store. These two places, together with a store for golf accessories, belong to the same owner.

 

The JinLin bathhouse opened around nine years ago. Business is not good anymore because many residential buildings have been demolished in recent years. Just a few customers are left in the area, but soon they also will have to move elsewhere.

 

 

Jin Jun lives in the area for over ten years.  He has no idea yet where he will go to when the bathhouse and the shops will be demolished.

 

During the daytime there are no customers anymore. In the evening they receive between 20 and 30 customers. It costs 10 RMB to take a shower or a bath.

 

The bathhouse has a male division and a female division. In the middle of the male division lies a big bathing pool. There are showers, a barrel for bathing, two tables for rubbing your back (or having it rubbed) and a sauna room. In the female division there is no bathing pool and bathing barrel. There is no toilet in the bathhouse. Customers who want to use a toilet have to go outside and use the public toilet.

 

Si JiaGui comes from Anhui and he has been in Beijing for four years. He says that, when business was still good in the bathhouse, they had over a hundred customers per day.

 

The bathhouse used to offer foot treatment and massage services, but it doesn’t have these services anymore.

 

 

 

 

Beijing, “Hairdresser”

 

In an area that is being demolished, remaining houses and makeshift buildings ensure business is continuing for as long as there are customers around. In this case the customers are construction workers looking for massage and other services. Small shops and restaurants, a pool game club and “hairdressers” are the business. The streets are dirty and the smell of garbage and public toilets is overwhelming.

 

We talked with one woman who, as a “hairdresser”, provides relaxation services to her clients, mainly in the evening. She starts work at eight o’clock in the morning and continues until ten o’clock at night. After work she returns to her flat nearby. She is from Anhui province and came to Beijing a few years ago. Her husband makes a living with decorating houses. She used to have a much bigger workplace, but that building has already been demolished. Now she has a temporary place, just a few square meters, made from corrugated roof panels and material found on the demolition site. Before the demolition began, her business was much better.

 

She smiles when she starts talking about her son. Her son has a wide range of interests. He likes painting and dancing. He currently lives in the south of China and studies Information Engineering at a college in Kunming.

Then her smile disappears and she looks sad. “He never calls me mother anymore”.

 

 

 

 

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