1001 Chinese Tales: High rent, housing prices killing will of ‘ant tribe’
Illustration: Peter C. Espina/GT
"But darling, we're going to live in a more expensive apartment soon - the landlord is raising our rent," her boyfriend bitterly responds.
The joke could not better depict the frustration of tenants in Beijing, who desperately want to buy their own home and escape the shackles of a landlord.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, housing-related prices rose by 3.1 percent year-on-year in June, with rental costs up 4.1 percent. It was also reported that since 2010, housing rentals have sustained an upward trend, seeing 42 consecutive months of increased prices.
In China, given sharply soaring property prices in many cities, especially big metropolises like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, owning a home has become an unaffordable luxury. Millions of people working and living in cities are forced to make due with a dingy room or even just a bed to save on rent.
The recent tale of 25 renters, mostly fresh college graduates, who were cramped into a two-bedroom 80-square-meter flat stacked with bunk beds, is not surprising.
But news of the apartment, near Beijing's East Third Ring Road, where housing prices have skyrocketed to as much as 60,000 yuan ($9,762) per square meter, did re-open a sore spot for the public. The tenants who pay 800 yuan a month endure sweaty conditions and fetid odors in the summer, and wait at least two hours for their turn to take a shower.
The neologism "ant tribe" or yizu created a few years ago describes exactly this situation, where low-income renters, usually migrant workers or students, suffer through the packed and horrid living conditions while striving for a brighter future.
I can only assume that they, too, dream of a spacious living room with comfortable couches and plush cushions. But the high costs of renting in the city combined with miserable salaries make for little other choice.
One of the 25 tenants told a local newspaper that he earned 3,000 yuan per month, a meager salary that makes it next to impossible for him to afford anything else but the squalor he lives in.
Restrictions on home renovations that divide living quarters into confined areas of less than 10 square meters have been hard to enforce as the illegal subdivisions continue to spring up across the city like wild mushrooms.
Despite police crackdowns in recent years on the illegal rentals, which put an added stress on fire hazards as well as public services in the community, where there is demand, there is supply.
Some people worry that the generation of those born after 1980, a significant share of the bunk bed tenants, will gradually lose their spirit in the face of mounting prices.
Others are sad for the 25 renters, and quite possibly, the tens of thousands of peers like them, who will spend their youth on a narrow bed that will eat away at their passion for a better life if they fail to succeed first.
A failure on the part of the government to adequately regulate the increasingly hot rental market has become an urgent point of discussion among renters, who argue that having an affordable place to stay is necessary to their survival in the city.
Overly high prices also bring more risks of conflict, which is not what young people need today.
Let me end with the joke by saying, "Let the young couple hold on to the hope of owning a home one day." And help them get on their way by reducing their rent.
The author is a reporter with the Global Times. yujincui@globaltimes.com.cn