旧宫位于北京的西南角。近些年，这里已从农田发展成为城乡结合部。从旧宫地铁站出来，环顾四周，街道两旁几乎已被各小区的高楼填满，几处建筑工地夹在小区之间，日夜不停地继续建设更多高级住宅。我们在这附近看见了一片残存的平房，靠路边的房屋已被拆除。据说，这里的住户过去基本上全是农民。
为了新的房产开发项目，这里的房子全部会被拆除。目前，三分之二的房屋已被推平，但仍有将近40户居民不愿搬走。
我们采访了李淑兰女士。李大妈虚岁79，已经在这里居住了54年。她有四个女儿和两个儿子，连唯一的孙女都三十岁了。如今孩子们仍和他们夫妇俩住在一起，但是开发商只分给她两套房，根本不够住的。
李淑兰说，这里本来该在去年六月就全部拆迁的，但是剩下的四十多户人家对拆迁款不满意，不愿意搬走，就一直耗到了现在。
去年六月，这里就已经断水断电，施工队把公共厕所都拆了。剩下的住户只能去对面的小区里打水，大小便就直接在野地里解决。
李淑兰说，她现在也想搬走了，“不搬还怎么办呢”。但是拆迁办承诺的两套住房都是南街的豆腐渣房，去年曝光之后就拆除了，她现在都不知道这里还要不要拆，自己还能去哪。
李淑兰原是山东人，54年前来到这里，成为南疆农场的农民。当时场里工人太多，职工宿舍解决不了大家的住宿问题，因此许多工人就在此盖起了平房。
现在，李淑兰和丈夫都已退休。两个人上了岁数，身体都不太好。李淑兰说，他们夫妇俩每月的养老金加起来有4000元。
李淑兰说，这里有许多像她一样上了岁数的住户，因为房子的问题着急上火。有些老人因此一病不起，去世了。
我们快要离开的时候，遇到了住在周围其它地方的居民。他们说，许多上了岁数的人都在这里住了一辈子了，在房子上花了不少钱，也在这里住出了感情。相比之下，开发商给的拆迁款实在是太少了。
听说，这里还有一位老太太，每天晚上都回女儿家住，白天就回来看看。
在北京，许多开发商拆除了老楼和胡同，原地建起了更豪华的住宅，让有钱有势的人住进来。而那些土生土长却没钱没势的人，就只能离开充满回忆的地方，搬到郊区去。最近我们听到了很多对于这种事的抱怨，很多人都对富人和官员的优待感到忿忿不平。
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.
