temporary life in the ruins - ye lin

8/16/2019 Temporary Life in the Ruins - Ye Lin

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Perifèries Urbanes – Grup de Treball de l'Institut Català d'Antropologia :: http://periferiesurbanes.org

TEMPORARY LIFE IN THE «RUINS»

Ye Lin Peking University, epart!ent of "o#iology

$#tober %&, &()

I. Introduction

M y fieldwork site is an old “slum” (from the perspective of outsiders)

neighborhood which has been undergoing urbanism program for eight yearsin the !orth of !an"ing city. #ith three months empirical observation andarchive research in progress $ now focus on how the residents who keep on living inthe slum and refuse to move live a temporary daily%life not smoothly butsuccessfully in the look%liked ruins brought by demolition and whether the oldcommunity could be rebuilt in the settlement place or basically destroyed fromanthropological perspective.

01. The temporary life in the ruins (By Lin)

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$ argue about two pairs of parallel lines during the urbani&ation or in the urban as aprocess: 'irstly there eists parallel lines in the definition of the

temporal/transitional period one of which is the assumptions of government/eal*state +ompany while the other is the real eperience of residents in everyday lives.$n other words the specific policy and actions of governments at all levels correspondto three periods (demolition%transition%resettlement) which are well%defined andisolated with each other while the residents eperience a real (and therefore blurredoutspreaded and interwoven) transitional/temporary period which starts from themoment they are informed of the replacement program which is only the beginningof the demolition period in the government,s logic. -he second pair of parallel lineseists in the negotiation of compensation between residents and government when itseems like that both of them use the same language (the language of economy and thelanguage of law) talking about the houses as the ob"ects or as the residents, homes.-hat is to say the government use current prices in assessment while the residentsuse their every detailed effort which could also be claimed in an economic/law%related way as a response and bargaining counters.

-he slum where $ developed my fieldwork which ad"oined the south riverbank (thecity) and the north part (the countryside) was born in the late empire +hina from aswallow outside the city%wall to a residential suare and essential passageway linkingthe city and the countryside because of new city plan practices. -oday it physically dying due to newer city plan ideas which reminds us that the dynamic spatiality problems of rural%urban continuum area not only refer to the process of city

epanding but also issues about the role transformation of the con"unction betweenthe city and the countryside. -herefore they are not only contemporary changes atone time but also a long and continual sets of changes during the process of modernity%city%making in the past century. $n such a contet what the parallel linescould represent are more than the conflicts between residents and government in thetemporary period under the impact of urbani&ation but the collision among urbanplanning ideas and practices at different times themselves.

II. Location and Identity History

+hongde treet is in the north of !an"ing +ity in 0iangsu 1rovince and ad"oins thesouth bank of the 2reat iver. -he street arose since the late 3ing 4ynasty. 5eforethat it was a place of shallow between the city wall and the river. $t appeared whenthe 3ing 2overnment opened the 5eiguan -reaty 1ort for the *uropean countries

which is close to it and then developed uickly in the whole period of the epublic of +hina and also in the early stage of the 1eople,s epublic of +hina. -he whole siteincluding the port +hongde treet and other streets then became an importantshipping center and is still surrounded by amount of wharfs both old and new. $t also

became the most important passageway not only linking the urban district and thesuburb district of the city but also linking !an"ing +ity and the broad north part of

the entire province. -hen the 2reat 5ridge of the 2reat iver appeared which madethis site lose its importance gradually.

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&* T+e pervasive +ousing for! -y .in/

&%* T+e re!nant of so#ial life in t+e street during t+e de!olition -y .in/

o that most natives in +hongde treet are immigrants who came from other placessince the beginning of last century and their descendants from second to fourth

generation. -hey can be divided into three parts: (6) the individual water%side peoplefrom 7ubei 1rovince at first who were then collective after 6898 (;) the fishermen

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from -ian"in +ity who left the women and the children settle down here and went foroverseas business themselves (


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III. History o a !s"u#$

+hongde treet had been treated as a slum for over 8> years. $n 68;9 thegovernment of epublic of +hina had already listed it on their plan of shantytownrenovation for their +apital 1lanning in !an"ing. -his image last for nearly a century.5efore the demolition of it started in ;>>8 most houses in this street were stillsimple and crude single storey or tow storeys. ome were transformed from oldslums for improvement of living. -he others were rebuilt in the foundation of the oldslums. $n addition the natives used to build an attic a kitchen or a toilet along the

wall of the house for epanding their living space. =ll these made the street,s shapeand structure looked irregular and messy. -he houses suee&ed each other and oftenetended to the alley.

-he other side of the identity as an old slum is intimate neighborhood close contactand characteristic space structure which enable the street a mature urbancommunity. 5efore the demolition the main street of +hongde street%community wasalways a crowd of stores markets and peddlers. $t,s busy bustling and attractingpeople both inside and outside the community. =fter the demolition under the nameof “renovation” started the stores totally closed and the traders were all gone.7owever residents who kept on living here although less and less still carried ontheir daily life in the look%liked ruins not smoothly but successfully. $t had directrelation with the neighborhood here. $t had direct relation with the intimateneighborhood and with the remaining of some places which were important for their

past street lives.

&4* T+e ne3s about innovation pro5e#t in (6&s fro! t+e Central aily 7e3s ar#+ives/

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&8* T+e ne3s about innovation pro5e#t in (6&s fro! t+e Central aily 7e3s ar#+ives

I%. T&ree 'eriods inc"udin( stayin() transition and re'"ace#ent

-he land of +hongde treet was sold by the district government in 688? to severalreal estate companies but didn,t start any pro"ect on it until 69 years later. $n ;>>80une the government began to show the public about the “renovation pro"ect” of +hongde street with the truth of a totally demolition and resettlement pro"ect. @nly after one month of the publicity the government fro&e all the house property uickly and organi&ed groups which need to introduce the pro"ect to the residents persuadethem to move evaluate the condition their houses and negotiate with them about thecompensation. 5y the @ctober of that year which is to say only after < months of thepublicity more than half of the 69>>> residents totally A9>> households signed upthe agreement and moved out of their houses. =fter that the speed of sign%up and

moving became slower and slower. o far ;>6? eptember after A years of the beginning of the demolition pro"ect there are still 6>>> residents totally >households live or to say stay in their houses in +hongde treet. -he governmentdestroyed all the sign%up houses in ;>69 0anuary and then built walls around thedestroyed houses and slums for “the appearance of the city” in ;>69 0une on whichthe Bouth @lympic 2ames hold in !an"ing not far away from this street. urrounded

by the long crude concrete walls the street looked like a real ruin.

-he new resettlement buildings which committed by the government in ;>>8 wereplanned to finish in ;>6; had only partly finished till ;>6? March. @nly ;>>>households moved in these low%end buildings far away from the place where they

used to live in. -hat is to say the households who signed up the agreement andmoved out from their old houses since ;>>8 0uly have lived in rental places with low

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income and the compensation of less than > yuan/month for the whole householdsfor nearly A years. -he ;>>> households have finally moved in their new apartment

but the others still need to wait for a long time and continue their lives in transition

and waiting. Meanwhile the real estate companies started to develop the land of +hongde street since ;>6; and finished the first and the second stage of theconstructing pro"ect high%end residence communities and matched elite school andhave already sold up. -he third stage of the pro"ect is in progress. -herefore in theperspective of space the new high%rise buildings are epanding while the slums orthe old houses of residents who stay here are reducing. @n the boundary of the twotypes of buildings the incomplete high%rise building which is still growing and theslums nearly ad"oin each other.

&9* T+e open2air 3as+ing sink of one fa!ily, ne:t to t+e 3orking site -y .in/

&6* T+e border bet3een t+e re!aining neig+bor+ood and t+e ne3 +ig+2rise buildings -y .in/

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%. Ho* t&e nei(&+or&ood c&an(es under t&e i#'act o

ur+ani,ation

'irstly $t,s essential to know how some natives or their ancestors obtained the land built their houses and rebuilt them when the families became bigger and bigger andhow the others rent state%owned houses and finally turned them became themselves,and rebuilt them to improve their lives. =ll these housing histories in addition to thenatives, personal histories and the past of the neighborhood affected both the nativesand the government officials, decisions in their negotiation of compensation andresettlement.

econdly it,s necessary to observe how the residents who refused to move and kepton living in the street managed their lives in the ruins for A years. $n other words it,simportant to observe how the neighborhood relationships changed during thedemolition pro"ect the publicity the negotiation and the moving and how therelationships affected. 5esides $ found a more complicate connect%network in theruins including the staying residents the district government the street office thedemolition%pro"ect groups the real estate companies the construction team and its

workers the floating peddlers coming after the demolition the underworld of thedemolition pro"ect and the illegal peacemakers. ocial "ustice under this multipointconnect%network is worthy to discuss.

-hirdly how the new neighborhood is in the new resettlement buildings is worthy studying. @n one hand residents have partly rights of choosing the floor the type andthe number of building of their new apartment on the other hand according to thedifferent compensation they received their right of choosing the apartment islimited which means they could not actually choose their new neighbors. =lthoughgenerally speaking all the new residents are from the same street but the specificneighbors around every specific family in the past is gone. 'or some of them theirrelationship with the neighbors dissolved even from the beginning of the demolitionpro"ect because of suspicion uarrel rumor in terms of compensation andresettlement. !ot only of that for most residents the domestic relationship in theirown family also dissolved because they could not reach a consensus on the division of house%property or the compensation. -herefore the resettlement does not only meanresidents resettle their living space but also resettle their relationships with otherfamily members and the neighborhoods. +ould these relationships continue orrebuildC $f they can,t could the old street community be rebuilt in the new buildingsC-hat,s a uestion.

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(&* A te!porary kit#+en built during t+e de!olition -y .in/

((* ;egetable plots opened up by residents in t+e ruins 3+ere on t+e site of t+eirneig+bors1 +ouses* -y .in/

%I. T&e Rea" -or"d inside t&e ruins

'irstly there eists a special new connect%network in ruins taking the workers foreample. $n the ruins not only the native live. -he hundreds of temporary workers

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hired by the construct team and working for the high%side buildings for the real estatecompanies live in the ruins too. 'irstly in my fieldwork $ found that the temporary

workers most of whom from the villages in the north of the province brought sense

of lively to the residents instead of sense of unsafe. ome of them even tried to build arelationship with the construct team and the workers by a very meaningful action:give cigarettes to the workers and their managers. econdly $ found that the largeamount of workers brought great living need which encouraged many floatingpeddlers came into the walls and selling foods in the ruins in spite of risks. -hey primarily sold foods to the workers therefore sought the protection of theconstruction plant to avoid the city inspectors, penalty. -he natives benefit fromthem. -hey found themselves start to buy foods in the street again no more findingthe far and epensive markets. -hirdly the workers fill in the gaps of the ruins intheir everyday life. @nly a few temporary workers wanted to live in the container

which cost them high deposit. -he others preferred three kinds of local spaces in the

street: the slum abandoned by the owners the slum which was owned by someone but had no body living in and the abandoned state%owned buildings. #hat needs ourattention is even the abandoned slums and buildings need to pay rental epense butthe workers did not pay the past owners but the construct team who undertook thedemolition mission of the slum or building. -he team would rent the abandonedslums and buildings when they could not destroy them for a variety of reasons.

(* An on2going negotiation bet3een t+e residents and t+e 3orkers -y .in/

econdly we need to rethink the meaning of an “old%neighborhood” and therefore

redefine it. 5efore $ went to my fieldwork $ thought the neighborhood of an old%shantytown must be big enough so that we could call it “a community”. -hat,s why $imagined positively about the new resettlement buildings. $ guessed that the old

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community could easily be rebuilt as long as all the resident be resettled in the sameplace even though the old street%community was totally destroyed physically. 5ut thefact is the scale of the specific real neighborhood for the natives was very small.

-here was no “common neighborhood”. #hat the natives had were their ownneighborhood different from each other and the neighborhood is closely related withtheir house in space. @n the other side $ found that the neighborhood had a pattern.-wo different family may have different people as their neighborhood but they may probably share a same pattern: good guys normal guys madman fool *r 5aiwu(someone who doesn,t understand the rules of social interaction in his culture welltherefore often break someone else,s heart unintentionally) and 7uo !aogui(someone always make trouble for the others on purpose in the case of my fieldworkmaking money for assisting the local government/company by threatening theresidents). =nd when they moved to the new community they still used this patternto evaluate if the new circumstance of neighborhood good or not.

(%* 7e3 peddlers in t+e ruins after all t+e stores #losed and peddlers disappeared -y .in/

-hirdly the differentiation in the old slum neighborhood should be treated seriously.$ thought the community in an old%shantytown was a collective with highhomogeneity because they shared the same family relations housing conditioneveryday lives and occupations. 5ut it,s not. $t had its own different parts since the

beginning of the community. =ll the fishermen from -ian"in the waterside%peoplefrom 7ubei and the famers from 7uaian had differentiation for a long period in theirincomes families housing and social networks. -he differentiation emergedespecially when they faced the urbanism pro"ect.

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= t last the world “inside the walls” is not isolated. -he walls looks like isolate theinsiders with the outside world. 5ut in fact the residents who kept on living insidethe walls never feel lonely. -heir lives are still lively: they epand their daily life and

try to break the walls when their places are smaller and smaller. 'acing the truth thatthey may move out soon the residents try to freuently use the new facilities new landscape and new community welfares which are designed for the new residents inthe future by the companies which is unepected by the government and hard toprohibit.

(0* "treet2artist1s 3ork in t+e neig+bor+ood< t+e =uture City -y .in/

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temporary life in the ruins - ye lin

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