From Thatched House to Apartment

Along with the changes our generation saw in family structures and economic standings, a natural evolution occurred in how and where we live. For example, the house where I was born was a simple 20-to-30-square-meter thatched house. The walls were constructed of bamboo stalks stuck together with mud; the floors were just rammed earth; and the roof was covered with straw. It was not until the 1980s that a brick house replaced our birth home.

In 1971, my family moved to a village called “Sili” in suburban Lianyungang City in Jiangsu Province, which at the time was one of the few wealthy villages in China. Most villagers there had built their own brick homes through financial assistance of the village.

Our house was built with the help of a construction team during the farming off-season. The workers were all farmers from neighboring villages. Its size and style conformed to the village’s strict standards and regulations. Its layout was typical of a three-bedroom, one-story house seen in rural areas. The central room served as both the living room and the dining room, the floor of which was paved with tiles. The room on the east side was the bedroom for my parents and the two rooms on the west side were the bedrooms for my brothers and I. The area of the three bedrooms was all around 15 square meters. Moving into such a house made us feel as though we were living in luxury.

In 1979, my family moved again from Sili Village to Jinping Town, which was 10 kilometers away. Our household registration was transferred to an urban status because of the transfer of my father’s work. The old house in Sili Village was sold to a local villager, and in 2005 demolished and replaced by a brand-new three-story house. By that time about half the households in the village had built such freestanding houses.

In Jinping Town, my father worked in the local government. Based on family size, the government alloted us three principal rooms and a side room in a barrack-like residential compound. After living there for six years, my parents and I moved again into an apartment in a storied dwelling in Lianyungang City. Very few people would be so privileged to live in an apartment in those days, so a senior high school student by then, I was a little excited about that. By that time my first and second elder brothers were married and had been assigned their own living quarters. My third and fourth elder brothers were living in their company dormitories.

Based on the number of my family members still living at home, the government then allocated us a 34-square-meter, two-bedroom apartment. In 1989 just before my father’s retirement, the government assigned him a 100-square-meter, two-story house. A few years later as housing reforms were carried out, the government sold the house to my father at the extremely low price of RMB 25,000 as a reward for his 40 years of service.

Today all of my elder brothers have their own apartments. I’ve also bought an allocated apartment in Beijing. Although it is only 57 square meters in size, I am content with it because it is not easy to buy one in such a convenient location in Beijing at price so far below the market.

From Fetching Water to Buying Water

Life in the countryside where I grew up was quite different from my urban life now. The facilities in our homes have undergone many changes. When I was a child my family raised pigs – a rural tradition dating back thousands of years. In fact the Chinese character “家” for “home” is an associative compound. The upper part of the character means “house” and the lower part, “pig.” This may illustrate the swine’s connection to the home and China’s agrarian background.

Almost every household in our village raised at least one or two pigs. We fed them with grass and leftovers; the pigs usually were not very fat and grew very slowly. They were sold at the end of the year to supplement the family income. This was also the main source of pork supplies to urban areas. People also reared hens, but for their eggs rather than for their meat. In the past rural residents earned very little money, so most households could afford to eat meat only during important festivals. Usually they only had vegetables from their gardens to live on. Even a simple fried egg or stewed Tofu would be considered a high-grade treatment for guests. It was only during the Spring Festival or when some important guests arrived that villagers were willing to cook one of their hens. Last year I returned to visit my rural hometown and found that most households had given up raising pigs and hens due to the high cost and the bad odor involved. Large animal farms have replaced these individual operations.