(Photo:Agencies)

(Photo:Agencies)

(Photo:Agencies)

(Photo:Agencies)

(Photo:Agencies)

by Fauna

Wiping tears away while revealing the living conditions of Beijing “ant people”. When can university students see hope?

This issue is even heavier than "Dwelling Narrowness", so I hope there will be people who will pay attention to this.

“Ant people” is a description of the university graduates living in the “village in the middle of a city”. In China, with Beijing’s Tangjiashan Village being the most representative, in this small village that can be run around in less than an hour, there live at least around 100,000 recent graduates, and the majority here are university students. I myself am a member of this group.

Let me first introduce the living environement here. Here, most of the buildings are “tongzilou” [dormitory style, one hall, two sides of rooms], provided specifically for us people who need cheap rental housing. The big units are under 20 square meters, while the small ones are only a few square meters. These units have no quality to speak of, and while those who have seen “Dwelling Narrowness” will definitely have some impression of small apartments, the units we are living in are far worse than those.

A lot of people come to Beijing with their dreams. There are also those who are in Beijing to attend university who, after graduating, decide to remain in Beijing to begin their lives. Whether it is because of their family’s financial situation or the difficulty of finding jobs or other reasons, they can only choose this kind of pay-by-month and cheap dormitory style shared housing building.

Actually, amongst them I am considered relatively lucky, because my job income is relatively normal, whereas there are comrades in Tongjianshan with salaries of only 1000 or not even 1000. Even though it is like this, their jobs aren’t necessarily stable either, with some having to face the predicament of finding a job all over again every so often.

Although the majority of people living here are all university students, there are also people from various parts of the country here to make a living. Only when seeing how much more bitter and difficult their living situation is can we find a shred of comfort in the deepest deepest part of our hearts, reminding ourselves that life is not easy so we must work hard! There are also people who call us:“The unkillable young stalwarts!”

(Agencies)