Bulldozers come after China’s “ant tribes”

BEIJING, China — Tangjialing looks a bit more deserted than usual on a cloudless morning. Homeless dogs idly stroll amid the dust raised by a passing bus. A shirtless butcher is squatting at his store front, washing the chicken blood off his cutting board. Street vendors are dozing under their umbrellas while restaurant waitresses are leaning on the glass front door quietly observing the few pedestrians. 

In addition to the empty buildings and deserted streets, the big “Demolish” signs on the brick walls reveal the fate of this village. Tangjialing, like five other villages in Beijing’s Haidian district, will be torn down for having “unauthorized construction.”

Tangjialing was a little known village of 3,000 residents in the northwest outskirts of Beijing, which in recent years has become home to more than 50,000 young workers and fresh college graduates. It has achieved notoriety as home to the “ant tribes” — a popular sociological term to describe the thousands of low-income young professionals who crowd China’s urban slums.

Their rooms might be small, but their dreams are big. “Ants” are attracted by the village’s low cost of living. They pay 350 to 700 kuai (about $50-$100) per month for a room no larger than 215 square feet plus a bathroom and a kitchen. Many share a single, poorly constructed room with roommates for an even lower rent. Every day, they rush into the city by bus early in the morning to work in Shangdi and Zhongguancun, Beijing’s IT hub. 

However, those “ants” are now being forced out of their homes, as the city’s Commission of Urban Planning has announced plans to demolish and rebuild the village. Most commercial buildings have already been torn down, and some scrap collectors are scrounging among the ruins for anything of value left behind. 

Renovation plans and compensation policies are posted everywhere in the village, but they are rendered nearly invisible by advertisements and written phone numbers of moving companies plastered over them. Although the government has not announced a firm date for the villagers to move out, some residents have already left for good.

“The eight college students who rented my place all moved out,” said a male landlord who requested anonymity out of fear of government reprisal. “I didn’t dare to ask where they went, but cheap housing isn’t easy to find nowadays.”

For those who insist on staying until the bulldozes arrive, their lives are filled with fear, doubt and uncertainty.

“I don’t want to talk about it, and my landlord hasn’t said anything about moving,” said a young tenant as she stood in her 10-square-foot kitchen. “I heard apartments are hard to find, but I don’t really know. I’m going back to my hometown.”

Officials said the project is designed to improve living standards for rural workers as the village will be rebuilt into public towers of suites for lease. But many villagers aren’t optimistic

“The government obviously doesn’t care about the young [tenants],” said a vegetable seller. “Compensation is only for those from Beijing. Most of [the tenants] aren’t from here and they don’t have a Beijing hukou [residency registration.] This project is only for locals.”

But landlords say they are suffering, too. Although they could move into the new towers without cash compensation after they are finished, the landlords began losing tenants immediately after the project was announced.

Two female landlords said they and the other landlords built the apartments just two or three years ago hoping to make some money. “But now everything is going to be torn down, and we haven’t earned back the money we put in,” one said, pointing at her building. “The compensation the government gives is so low, no one will accept that. So you negotiate with the government, and if you are still not happy with the price, you stay. You don’t move until they move you.”

There are even more debates over the worthiness of the project because many believe young people will simply look for other low-cost accommodation close by. Few agree with the mayor of Haidian district Lin Fusheng: “There will not be a second Tangjieling in Haidian district.”

“It won’t work,” said an older resident who still works in the village after moving out. “People are just going elsewhere, and I heard in areas close to those development parks [in Shangdi and Zhongguancun,] rent went up by 200 overnight. So Liulitun will be the second Tangjialing,” he shrugged, as he bought a piece of bread from a shop vendor who, like him, will also be leaving the village soon.