A renowned “nail house” in eastern China was finally hammered to the ground on Saturday, as the authorities demolished the house that was sitting smack dab in the middle of a new roadway.
The duck farmers who owned the five-story house, Luo Baogen and his wife, had refused to sell when local officials began buying up property in 2008 to make way for a new highway in Zhejiang Province. More than 450 homeowners in the neighborhood took the government’s relocation offer, reportedly receiving the equivalent of about $35,000 each.
But Mr. Luo resisted, even as construction began last year. The road, leading to a new train station outside the city of Wenling, was completed anyway — completely encircling the Luo house in a strange, bulging loop of tarmac.
Homes like Mr. Luo’s are known in China as nail houses “because such buildings stick out and are difficult to remove, like a stubborn nail,”
If you think the “nail house” in the middle of a new highway in Zhejiang province (which has already been demolished earlier this month) was a bizarre enough scene, check out the “nail grave” from China’s northern city of Taiyuan, capital of Shanxi province.
[Nail house is a Chinese neologism for homes belonging to people (sometimes called “stubborn nails”) who refuse to make room for development. The term, a pun coined by developers, refers to nails that are stuck in wood, and cannot be pounded down with a hammer]
The picture of a grave standing alone on a 10-meter island in the middle of a construction site has recently caught the attention of many Chinese netizens. The grave, which belongs to villager Chang Jinzhu’s father and grandparents, is sandwiched between two residential buildings that are almost done. According to construction workers on site, the grave is in the way of what is supposed to a public green land in the soon-to-be-finished residential community.
Burying the dead has long been a way for the Chinese to show respect to their ancestors and family history. The location of a grave is usually carefully selected by family members of the dead. A spot at some popular cemeteries in China cost no less than an apartment in big cities per square meter. “To uproot your family’s graves” is one of the most catty curses in Chinese.
According Cao Shuanquan, village cadre responsible for land management, the construction site used to be a public grave land for local villagers with about 200 graves. As the construction began, most villagers agreed to relocate their family’s graves after reaching an agreement on relocation compensation. Massive grave relocation started from 2009, and the grave of Chang’s family was the only one that was left.
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