What is this picture about? Why is this poor woman being blocked out by hundreds of Chengguan (City Urban Administrative and Law Enforcements)? [Netease] On December 17, Wuhan City organized over 800 law enforcement officers to forcefully demolish nearly 40,000 square meters of illegal buildings that are near the Wuhan City to Huangshi City railway construction site. The phenomenon of local famers rushing to “grow houses” is very common.

What does “growing houses” mean?

It is yet another unique phenomenon in China, formed in the last couple of years of amazingly fast social and economic development. When the entire nation is being modernized, countless high raises are erected every year, cities are expending and county’s infrastructures are also expending in order to support the economic growth. Highways, railroads and airports; bridges, tunnels and subway systems… are being built in almost every corner in China. This means some of the existing residential and farmland in the rural areas might be in the blue-print of a governments’ huge project. The government pays for development compensations for every house they have to tear down in order to build the development project. This motivated the farmers to build houses everywhere in the rural area of China. When some of them are permitted by the government but most are illegally and cheaply built. They even start to build houses in the agricultural fields therefore people say the farmers are “growing houses” instead of growing food.

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[Netease] Chinese TV series “Dwelling Narrowness” has caused national discussion on the continuously raising housing prices currently plaguing the market. Should young people (in China) who were born after 1980’s and just graduated from college be able to buy a home? On this issue, Ren Zhiqiang (任志强) boldly “speaks out directly without reservation”: Young people should not be able to afford houses. (You will find out who this guy is later.)

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[From MOP] A young migrant worker updates a post of his raw, yet I found to be truthful and insightful notes while working at a construction site of soon to be multi-million luxury homes in Sanya, Hainan.

I never speak out. I am a “diving” migrant worker.

(潜水: Diving means lurking here, it is a Chinese internet slang, means someone who reads forum posts but never replies, never expresses their views. It is like underwater diving, never pop their heads out of the water.)

I used to have very low self-esteem, just because I am a migrant worker working at construction sites every day. Maybe it’s because I went to junior college for two years, our manger Yang made me the publicist, so I got the opportunities to take photos.

Migrant worker is the synonym of low-quality in the society. I admit that we are the people living in the lowest level of the society. Even if we were paid attention to, we were seen as the weakest group.

But now I do not feel worthless anymore, in fact we the migrant workers are also human beings, we are proud, all of the high-rise buildings are built up with our blood and sweat; we also are educated, I can write posts; we also know how to live. The reason I write this post is so everyone can know how we build a block of high-rise buildings, and also to show you our lives as migrant workers.

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豆腐渣 (Soybean Residue) – The residue of soybean milk after being filtered. A slang used to describe poorly constructed structures like buildings that are not up to the safety standards; usually constructed with shoddy materials.

Another scary looking “Soybean Residue” building in Liaoning was exposed on Netease BBS. Here is the translation:

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[NetEase] It’s the new semester, outside the wall of a Wuhan’s college there is the concerning “most awesome” university dormitory. “Wang Hao Feng Focus” (王浩峰聚焦) went to the scene to inspect and saw a five story building rubs shoulders with a high-voltage tower. There were groups of college students going in and out. On the 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th floor there were students sticking their heads out of the windows looking around from time to time. One college student said these floors were occupied by college students.

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[Netease] The new building design for People’s Daily (人民日报) has been confirmed, the selected winner was designed by Professor Zhou Qi (周琦) of Southeast University, School of Architecture. However, once the plan was made public, netizens immediately started heated discussions. Some people say it looks like an iron, some say it looks like an aircraft carrier or even a urinal pot (an old style vessel for urine, used in bedrooms). Also some people criticized the building design is a shanzhai version of the Burj Al Arab — Dubai’s seven-star hotel in United Arab Emirates.

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From NetEast:

Chongqing Morning Posts reports on May 19, Chongqing Fuling Baiheliang (涪陵白鹤梁) underwater museum – the cultural relic protection projects in Three-Gorge reservoir district, which was invested for over 200 millions RMB, has opened to the public on May 18.

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