|
Front Page of the Day
Worker's apartment becomes garden in the airPosted by Eric Mu on Friday, January 7, 2011 at 1:38 PM
News reports on brutal demolition grace front pages quite often these days, and here we have yet another: In Mianyang, Sichuan Province, to force the last resident to leave her home, demolition contractor tore the stairs away, ergo the strange gutted-out structure on the cover of today's Wuhan Morning Post. The building were previously home to the employees of a local state-run factory. After the factory went bankrupt, the land was sold to developers to pay back its debt. However, the residents, generally feeling under compensated, initially refused to leave but after some of them got beaten, they yielded. Except Zhao Yanhong, whose apartment was on the top floor. She stayed until the new year eve of 2011, when she woke up to find that the stairs were gone. Though Zhao managed to get back to the ground, she said that all her belongings were left behind in her apartment which is still perching precariously on the top of the remaining structure. Links and Sources
|
Partner Links
Jobs in China
Recent Comments
Henry on
The Eurasian Face
Caroline W on
Big in China
Michael on
Julia Lovell on translating Lu Xun's complete fiction: "His is an angry, searing vision of China"
Brandon K. on
Clueless academic takes on popular fantasy novels
Media Partners
Visit these sites for the latest China news
China Media Timeline
Major media events over the last three decades
Danwei Model Workers
The latest recommended blogs and new media
 From 2008
Books on China
 The Eurasian Face : Blacksmith Books, a publishing house in Hong Kong, is behind The Eurasian Face, a collection of photographs by Kirsteen Zimmern. Below is an excerpt from the series:
Big in China: An adapted excerpt from Big In China: My Unlikely Adventures Raising A Family, Playing The Blues and Becoming A Star in China, just published this month. Author Alan Paul tells the story of arriving in Beijing as a trailing spouse, starting a blues band, raising kids and trying to make sense of China.
Pallavi Aiyar's Chinese Whiskers: Pallavi Aiyar's first novel, Chinese Whiskers, a modern fable set in contemporary Beijing, will be published in January 2011. Aiyar currently lives in Brussels where she writes about Europe for the Business Standard. Below she gives permissions for an excerpt.
Front Page of the Day
A different newspaper every weekday
From the Vault
Classic Danwei posts
+ Korean history doesn't fly on Chinese TV screens (2007.09): SARFT puts the kibbosh on Korean historical dramas. + Religion and government in an uneasy mix (2008.03): Phoenix Weekly (凤凰周刊) article from October, 2007, on government influence on religious practice in Tibet. + David Moser on Mao impersonators (2004.10): I first became aware of this phenomenon in 1992 when I turned on a Beijing TV variety show and was jolted by the sight of "Mao Zedong" and "Zhou Enlai" playing a game of ping pong. They both gave short, rousing speeches, and then were reverently interviewed by the emcee, who thanked them profusely for taking time off from their governmental duties to appear on the show.
Danwei Archives
Danwei Feeds
Via Feedsky
 (on the mainland)or Feedburner  (blocked in China) Main feed: Main posts (FB has top links) Top Links: Links from the top bar Danwei Jobs: Want ads Danwei Digest: Updated daily, 19:30 |
 |
Chinese media, advertising, and urban life. |
|
tweet
facebook
bookmark
HaoHao
digg
Comments on Worker's apartment becomes garden in the air
It is disgusting that the great government of China allows the beating of protestors and similar infringement of human rights to happen to its citizens. Taking the stairs out from under the last resident could have caused some of the building to collapse and kill the person inside. That is unacceptable and illegal in most of the civilized world.
China's new greediness for "developer's" money has put many people in danger of loosing their lives and limbs and meagre possessions. Corruption is rampant in China's construction industry and equally so in the bribery of city officials and police who oversee construction practices.
There needs to be proper legal protocols, handled only by government designated officials, for evicting people from their homes in the most humane way possible. Because of China's large population, it is obvious that life is cheap in China. But each death and mistreatment of civilians adds a stain and fuels discontent. Eventually something will burst in the fabric of communism.