Being in China, you can witness a strange sight: right in the middle of a road or modern development stands an old house. Seeing something like this in your homeland would be unusual. But in the Celestial Empire, frankly strange “attractions” can be found in almost every major city. So who owns the house in the middle of the road?
In China, property is passed down through inheritance. Therefore, as you might guess, for ordinary citizens, their own home is a guarantee of security not only for themselves but also for their descendants. Acquiring real estate in China is difficult, and therefore the population naturally clings to its main treasure. The problem is only that one fine day, the plot on which your house stands may be attempted to be bought out by some construction company for the construction of a new district, an industrial enterprise, or simply for the laying of a highway.
For a construction company, the main difficulty in buying land is that they will have to negotiate with individual owners among ordinary citizens. And they will have to buy not only the land but also compensation. And it is with this that construction companies in China (and not only) have significant problems. Business tries to minimize costs, which is why the promised compensations, if not ridiculous, are still not large enough to buy a new house or apartment.
In this regard, the case with the old Chinese woman Lyan became extremely indicative. She lived in a dugout, but despite this, she still refused compensation. The construction company launched a media campaign against Lyan, ridiculing the old woman and claiming that she allegedly asked for 4 apartments and 15 million yuan on top of her house! The case became media-driven, and Lyan, with her dugout, was branded as nothing less than a “symbol of greed.” However, despite all the efforts, the construction company did not take away the old Chinese woman’s home.
Then the builders found an “elegant” solution. They surrounded Lyan’s house with a wall (leaving a passage) and built a road around her house. As a result, everyone got what they wanted. And Lyan’s house eventually became a local attraction by name, because such a case in China was by no means the first and did not become the last. From time to time, similar conflicts arise between ordinary Chinese people and construction companies. Fortunately, the law still protects such stubborn people, at least for now.