Aug 22, 2009 Housing History Tour

As Hainan passes through China’s scorching ‘09 Summer, I walk from room to room in my comfortable Sanya apartment. I read awhile in my spacious air conditioned bedroom, look up at white crown moldings and remind myself that, as recently as late 1980s, entire families lived in a two-meter-squared room. No wonder my Chinese friends can’t fathom me living alone in all this space. “A warm home’s like a small shell,” they intone, and my shell’s too big for their comfort.  Foreign Affairs offices, knowing foreigners expect space, cheerfully placed me in three similar places in as many years. I seemed the only one who noticed the inequality involved.

I smooth the duvet on my queen-sized guestroom bed. A bachelor, living with his married brothers and sisters in a room this size, would consider this space for a dignified, happy life in 1989. At that, he would remember the days and nights before the 1950s when real estate first became a concept in China. Dorms for men or women only was the rule back then; I heard more than one story of a pregnant wife secretly moving from her family’s home to the men’s dorm while the husband waited years for his work unit to issue a spot in married dorms.  

Teachers didn’t have it easy back then either; like everyone else, they kept moving between work units. Once accepted to teach at a university, they were sent keys to share a family’s home. In Beijing, prior to 1980s, that was a two-meter-squared room on one side of a hall which shared kitchen and toilet with room-after-room home like theirs. They often walked on bricks to avoid sewer water on the floor. By 1986, home removal companies formed to raze, then build apartment blocks across cities. It’s still happening in every Chinese city I’ve visited; cranes and bamboo scaffolding dot city scapes. Sounds of jack hammers and heavy equipment are common sounds day and night.

I cross my gleaming tile floor to computer-stream in Piano Jazz or flip to a Channel 15 classical concert and think how 20 friends filled up my living room with Chinese banter last evening. They toasted my birthday, sampled microwave popcorn and dark chocolate around my glass-topped table, and asked for the recipe to chicken salad, before asking the inevitable, “Aren’t you lonely here?”

I’m just as amazed that they speak fondly of their identical-to-my concrete box on the ninth floor across Fenshang Gardens development. Eight women live in three bedrooms with a common living room, a sea of shoes tossed around two bicycles. The young principal claims one room, seven teachers share the other two. Free meals are eaten at school or (weekends) in street shops, so the kitchen is a place to brush teeth. A squattie-potty and shower at the end of a clothes-drying entry is identical to mine, except I have an egg-shaped washing machine. No wonder they usually respond to, “What are your weekend plans?” with “Washing clothes.”

One recent week, they used my shower when their landlord suddenly turned off water with no warning. At least they didn’t have to do what Shanghai families did in 1986, brushing teeth around a family tap where they also washed chamber pots.
I shrug off their “It’s so clean!” comments and refrain from telling them of the scrubbing, bleaching, and rearranging it took to make each place I’ve lived my own. This apartment had eight student teachers’ mattresses on the floor, no broom or mop, one faucet that worked, and two working light bulbs when I moved here. A wet mop had left mud-streaked paths; sinks were crusty; toilet smelled like an outdoor privy. Disinfectant and detergent changed the face of things with a half day of elbow grease. Owner Helen, invited to have iced coffee recently, walked from room to room and announced, “I want to live in my apartment again!” The appliances, plants, and decorations I’ve added will stay for the next occupant when I move.

My kitchen has a handy fridge, water purifier, microwave, blender, rice cooker, wok, tea kettle, and silverware and plates–more than enough for weekend cooking. I invite a co-workers to watch CCTV9’s documentary on Real Estate and ladle Western-style vegetable soup into their bowls. Accepting seconds, they try to refrain from smacking and slurping in deference to my Western way of eating. We learn that, in 1991, Beijing listed China’s first real estate sale as people quit relying solely on the government to improve their lives.

Each to-be-displaced household was given 60 yuan (<$9US) and one year to find a new place during mass relocation. 1993 brought a south-north road plan, and 100,000 residents quit climbing ladders (no stairs) to reach their room-on-room homes and moved to Beijing’s suburbs. It was disappointing; there was no lighting and only one bus route into workplaces. “Real Estate Takes You to Paradise” slogans changed to “You won’t reach the sky in a single step.” Folks had nine-meter homes and no running water, but they had real estate. Developers began buying up land and building 32-square-meter homes. Hopefuls pitched tents in front of real estate offices so they wouldn’t miss a chance to buy. People pooled resources and formed cooperatives, responsible for their development’s management, in 1997. Security, always an issue in welfare housing, began to reform. 1989 brought the first guards, now at every development’s gate around the clock.The half-century system of Welfare Allocation was abolished in 1998.

“Happy Housewarming!” is now a common greeting, accompanied by strings of firecrackers lit to drive away any mischevious spirits. My own door opens under a lucky red longevity and prosperity banner. China’s housing comodities reported 130% growth in the five years prior to 2003; per capita income increased 55%. Tonight, August 23, 2009, TV news showed an impressive space shuttle planning to probe a Mars moon within the next year. Even “The sky’s the limit!” is taking on new possibilities. Who knows? If housing development opens up on another planet, China’s one child policy may become a thing of the past.