In mid-May, Zhang Yue planned to take her mother to see the moonflower show. Her mother was reluctant to go out, saying, “I can’t go, what if someone throws a grenade at the house when I go out?”
Zhang Yue knew she could not convince her mother. Over the past ten years, her mother had become more and more timid, and her mind was so rigid that she refused to go anywhere at home. Whenever she was asked, she always said the same thing, arguing over and over again that she firmly believed in the logic that as soon as she left, people would bulldoze the house at the back.
What my mother couldn’t let go of was the two small brick houses by the railway tracks at Huangcun Railway Station, No. 31, Station Road, Daxing District, Beijing.
The house is facing the road, and behind it are abandoned cottages left over from the demolition more than ten years ago, full of old garbage, some of which have been turned into unkept toilets. The few remaining facades are restaurants owned by foreigners. Across the road, 20 to 30 meters away, are commercial houses and community service stations belonging to the new city.
These two brick houses were built in 2005. At that time, the family encountered the second demolition of the coal company, which was a temporary resettlement, but this “temporary” can never end.
In order to expand the area, the brick house was built with asbestos tiles on the side to form a shed, but the whole added up to less than 60 square meters. In the center of the house, there was an old poplar tree that was as thick as a hug burrowing out of the sky, and a layer of dead leaves that had been deposited for years made the roof look like some kind of historical relic. Mother said, “The old poplar tree is fifty years old, and it was in the yard when we first moved here.” In the corner of the doorway along the room, there is a door sign with white letters on a red background, the words are spray-painted and printed in the old-fashioned art imitation Song font: No. 31 yard, Station Road. This kind of door sign, except for the museum and Panjiayuan antique market, is almost impossible to see in Beijing.
And indeed it is. The address represented by this door plate does not exist on maps. Neither the electronic map nor the new paper map of Beijing can find House 31, Station Road in Daxing District. The official name of the area surrounding the location of this house is Drinking Horse Well Village, Daxing District, or Station Zhongli.
Zhang Yue’s mother and brother have lived here for twenty years. Today, his sister-in-law is carrying a large belly and is due to give birth in July.
The mother’s uneasiness came from a notice at the end of April. The “notice to vacate”, stamped with the red seal of the Beijing Coal Company Daxing District, said that as part of the government’s land acquisition, the house temporarily loaned to his father, Zhang Guangqing, by the coal company should be vacated within a week, otherwise it would be dealt with according to the law.
Zhang Yue refused to sign on behalf of his father. The coal company’s so-called “legal processing”, do not know what the law. The so-called “temporary loan” is also deposited for twenty years “headless case”.
Mother’s panic let Zhang Yue lamented, “since childhood, so many things happened, I always thought my mother is strong, now think, in fact, we are very fragile.”
Deep down, Zhang Yue shares her mother’s fear of a possible sudden demolition. This is not something she has not encountered before.
In the winter of 1995, Zhang Yue, who was in junior high school, witnessed bricks flying in through the window and bulldozers crashing into the courtyard wall. That was the first time Zhang’s family encountered demolition, and the beginning of the “headless case” about the house.
However, for Zhang Yue, the turning point of the family’s fate happened before the demolition.
Father disappeared
In the early 90s, Zhang Yue had an enviable family. His father was transferred to the canteen of the Daxing County Committee in Beijing after his discharge from the army, and then transferred to the Daxing Coal Company, where he was contracted to manage the canteen. After his mother came to Beijing, she worked in the grain bureau and also received a salary and social security. In his spare time, my father also made some brine dishes and set up a stall. The family never worried about their livelihood.
“At that time, many people in the village still ate nests, and our family ate white steamed buns. Other children wore broken sneakers, showing their toes, and my brother and I could always wear small leather shoes.”
The coal company raised funds to build a house, my father bought a set of more than 180 square meters of large yard. The courtyard is located in the Huangcun town station, not far from the Huangcun railway station. Two large rooms, an east room, even the kitchen has more than 30 square meters.
Mother mentioned before very proud, “Zhang Guangqing will earn money, those years to live is really rich.” In the eyes of Zhang Yue as a child, his father was an idol.
However, the idol was not brilliant for long.
One afternoon in 1992, my father pushed up his bicycle and said he was going out to do something. When his brother refused to leave, he left his bicycle and walked out the door.
This time, he left without a trace for 14 years.
Maybe it was too long, maybe it was something else, the mystery of my father’s departure was always underplayed in my mother’s mouth. “We were married for almost forty years, and we lived together for only six or seven years. Then the times changed and he ran away from home. He was lost and never found.”
What kind of “change in the times” would make the father leave without saying goodbye? Zhang Yue once thought that the parents’ relationship had fallen apart, but his mother did not deny it, only saying that she also suspected that his father was someone else.
That year, my father was actually very prosperous. He had set up a cake workshop, making fancy cakes that had just become popular, and business was booming. When my mother talked about this, she implied that my father’s success had made him suffer, “People were angry with him and said he would make a lot of money. They took his money, stole his money, robbed his money. In that company, there are all kinds of people.”
Zhang Yue believes that his father did behave abnormally before he left.
That year, Zhang Yue graduated from elementary school, was the school choir leader, was sent to the Beijing Conservatory of Music attached to the middle school. She was so excited to go home and report to her father, but was met with a pot of cold water.
“He was fixing his bicycle at the time and pouted at me when he spoke, saying what are you doing in that stupid school?” This kind of attitude has never been seen before.
“My father’s mind was no longer on the family, as if something was wrong, I don’t know what he was thinking.” My father was like a different person all of a sudden.
At that time, my mother had already started to have high blood pressure and vision loss. In addition to working and taking her two children to school, she had to take care of her grandmother, who was over 80 years old. Father disappeared out of thin air, she did not even care how to look for. She went to the coal company several times to inquire, but was questioned, “Where did you get Zhang Guangqing?
Two months later, my mother knew that the man was afraid that he would not come back. She did not cry, she began to find ways to earn more money to replace this man. “He didn’t come back, and I didn’t expect him at all. People say we are thrown away, no one wants us. But we were living quite richly on our own. At that time I was particularly bold, capable, and not afraid of anything.”
After work, she took Zhang Yue to the street to sell vegetables and fruit. She took her siblings on her bike to collect food from the fields and did everything she could to subsidize her family.
“I could not ride a bicycle before, and I will ride it now. Take them both, run around the village to pick up wheat, pick up corn, one or two hundred pounds of sacks, the pressure of the car trembling, ride on the go.”
Can’t afford to live in a building
In 1995, my father had been missing for three years.
That winter, for some reason, the nearby neighbors suddenly moved one after another, and bulldozers appeared in front of the house. One afternoon, two people from the coal company stopped my mother in front of the house, saying that the place would be demolished and the building would be built, so you should move out quickly.
The mother refused. She bought the house herself, how could she just say demolish it?
Then the water and electricity were cut off and bricks were thrown at the house. “Smashing glass, bulldozers hitting the walls behind them every night. My brother was only six or seven years old at the time. My mom got scared, afraid of smashing us both.”
After a period of stalemate, the demolitionists were gracious and reasonable, claiming that the area was to be rebuilt as a family building and that employees could move into the family building in exchange for housing. The mother believed in the policy, but there was nowhere to relocate. So, another person from the company came and said, you are quite poor, the company found a place for us to help move.
The resettlement site was in the courtyard of No. 31, Station Road. This courtyard was a staff compound shared by three units of coal, timber and oil at that time.
The “kind” helpers finished “moving” the home overnight, knocking down the original courtyard in a hurry and smashing many of the belongings in the rubble. Speaking of that demolition, my mother is still angry, “That’s not moving, it’s just destroying our home.”
The family has lived in Beijing for 20 years, but once they left, they were razed to the ground
When I arrived at the 31st courtyard, I realized that it had been abandoned for years and was almost isolated from the rest of the world. There were no other homes in the courtyard, and one of the houses assigned to it had a half collapsed roof and another was covered with dust and cobwebs. Only a poplar tree in the courtyard, showing a little life.
Not far from the broken courtyard, construction of the building soon began, and the family seemed to be left outside the times.
At this time, the company moved out of the policy, employees pay 20,000 yuan can be divided into a set. Zhang Guangqing people have disappeared, is no longer a coal company employees, if you want to live, you have to pay 150,000.
My mother felt bullied, but powerless to fight, the original house has become flat land, talk about what is useless. Go to the company to reason, to no avail. “They said that they should have blown you away, but they took care of you because you were poor and had two children. Don’t mind the old house, live in it first. You are not family members anymore, we do not have that obligation.”
Can not afford 150,000, the family had to live in the 31st house.
Many years later, Zhang Yue realized that the deception of this demolition had left her without a home of her own.
The non-existent House 31
In 1998, Zhang Yue started working and subsidizing the family with his monthly salary. The family lived in the 31st courtyard for ten years, but waited for another demolition.
In 2005, the coal company wanted to renovate the properties of its subordinates, and the 31st courtyard had to be demolished to build a storefront. My mother sat at home, not going out anymore, just wanting to keep the house.
The messenger who came to coordinate the demolition brought the news that the company took pity on the family who had nowhere to go and had allocated a piece of land to build two rooms to temporarily accommodate the Zhang family, and would build a small facade for the Zhang family to use. This piece of land was set aside from the corner of the original No. 31 courtyard. It is next to an underground passage built in the 1990s. The passage is like a gloomy and huge air-raid shelter, the entrance of which spits out an old abandoned aisle and crosses a triangle with the new road built after 2000.
There should not have been houses in this kind of place.
No foundation, red brick walls, the house was soon completed, but much smaller than the previous area, the poplar tree was covered into the house, from the roof of the sky and out.
The day the house was completed, the old courtyard was also half knocked down. My mother stood at the door, aggrieved but relieved. She picked up the discarded old yard sign from the ground and nailed it to the edge of the new house. From then on, the Zhang family’s small house became “No. 31 yard, Station Road”, an address that no longer existed.
But my mother felt that with this sign, it was more like a home. “People who come to walk around the neighborhood, they all know the 31st courtyard. When I go out to run errands, I write this.”
But when the mother actually lived in the home, she became disabled.
Before the Zhang family could move in, the new house was suddenly locked up and the water and electricity were not working. The person who put the lock on left a message to go to the coal company for procedures before moving in. The original promise of the facade was rented out for a kiosk. In a fit of anger, my mother collapsed at the door.
During the month when her mother was in a coma with a cerebral hemorrhage, Zhang Yue owed a lot of money. Since then, the mother could not walk normally and was later identified as physically disabled.
Five months later, the door lock was opened and the Zhang family moved into two rough rooms. The house was still without electricity and water, and Zhang Yue could not take care of his mother who had just been discharged from the hospital. When they went to the coal company, the coal company became a “good samaritan” again, laying out the so-called facts: in the spirit of helping the poor and needy, the company lent two houses to the Zhang family during the mother’s lifetime.
Zhang Yue paid fifteen hundred pieces of material costs, the home was connected to electricity and water, mother and brother lived in. The house was so crowded that there was no room for Zhang Yue, and her brother had grown up, so she could only rent out a room.
From then on, Zhang Yue completely replaced her mother and took over the burden of the family. The younger brother is still studying, she is both sister and mother. “When I first started working, doing clothes, working overtime every day, others do a few pieces a day, I do dozens of pieces. Got to save tuition for my brother. Things come, want to hide can not hide, because my father is not at home.”
The family has fallen on hard times, Zhang Yue felt the root cause in the coal company’s disregard for her father. She decided to go to Xuchang on her own to find her father.
The man who lost his memory
Zhang Yue did not find anyone in Xuchang, but her father appeared on his own.
One day in 2006, Zhang Guangqing, who had disappeared for fourteen years, suddenly appeared at the doorstep of his home, and opened his mouth with a Sichuan accent. Like a new person.
The man who called himself his father told Zhang Yue that he had gone to the mountains more than ten years ago, ate poisonous mushrooms and lost his memory. As for where exactly he went, he refused to explain. The mother wondered if he had another family outside. He was embarrassed to move another argument: all these years did not have a family, did not earn money, all for the country’s contribution.
“We have a treasure in the military zone, and for many years have been guarding the treasure for the country. After eating poisonous mushrooms, it went to the treasure, which is confidential.” When pressed further, there was nothing to follow.
After his return, his father did not live at home, but also with his family nothing to communicate, occasionally stay a while, answer a phone call and then go away. Sometimes not come back for half a year, come back with a big bag, half a room are full of suitcases he left behind, never let open, no one knows what is inside.
Zhang Yue advised his mother to try to live with his father again. But the mother said, this is a strange man, can not communicate. However, she also did not want to do a divorce. The father was unpredictable, coming home to clean the house and cook, and then not knowing where he was going, just like the family’s odd jobs.
Zhang Yue felt that something was wrong with her father, and that none of the words coming out of his mouth were true. He seemed to be living in another world. Sometimes, he would mysteriously tell Zhang Yue, I have a piece of land, let’s build a house.
This man, a cold lever to pry the family’s bad luck, so cleanly scattered.
“A sentence of memory loss will explain more than ten years, so how can I believe him?” Zhang Yue said.
Files all burned away
While the coal company pointed to its own property, a more ambitious construction has quietly started.
In 2005, Daxing District publicized the land acquisition plan for each village and town. 2007, the “Daxing New Town Control Detailed Plan” was publicized. In 2010, the government documents, Zhang’s village has been officially designated as the core area of the new city, the government will gradually start a comprehensive reconstruction.
In 2011, two people from the coal company came and brought documents verbally. The document said that the two houses must be demolished to prepare for the future green space. The government compensation of thirty thousand dollars was all given to the Zhang family.
Zhang Yue and his mother disagreed. “At that time, my brother was silly, so he wanted to pack up and move, but then he thought, where can he go? At that time, the rent was more than two thousand.”
Not long after, the water pipes were cut off. Afraid of his mother’s anger, Zhang Yue told her that the water pipe had been dug up by thieves. The nearby houses were soon demolished, and the old water pipes left in the ruins became the source of water for the Zhang family. Her mother used a trailer to pull a thermos bucket to carry water to the house every day, which she called “pushing water”.
Mother “push water” a push is five years, all the way through the ruins now weeds have grown a few crops. (Network picture) mother “push water” a push is five years, all the way through the ruins now weeds have grown a few crops. (Network picture)
The mother “push water” a push is five years, all the way through the ruins now weeds have grown a few crop. The core area construction is like being left behind. The brother repeatedly went to the coal to pass water, no one cared, and the demolition of the matter was not urged. Until April 2016, the land’s “detailed control planning” public, the coal company’s subordinate real estate company sent a “notice of deadline to vacate the house.
Zhang Yue wanted to communicate with the above, but could not find the person in charge of the company. “I asked who your leader is, they said no leader, the group company to merge us, after more do not know who the leader.”
The father has returned twice this year, to go to the coal company to ask for a statement, but no one will recognize their identity. The person in charge of the two demolitions had long since died or retired, and no one wanted to touch the mess of nail households. To check the historical records, but found that even Zhang Guangqing’s file is no longer available.
“They said there was a fire and the files were all burnt out. My father sat there and said I am an old Red Army, I have achieved third class, how much I have contributed to the company, where is the house I bought? But no one listens to this, people only recognize the house is the company.”
The evidence is lost, this is the most helpless thing for Zhang Yue.
No one could prove that his father had a house of his own. The father did not even ask questions anymore, and sometimes came out and asked, “When will this thing be over?”
Zhang Yue was dissatisfied with his father’s behavior, the man had become too cowardly. “What they say is what they say, just like he can’t call the shots himself, he can only be slaughtered.”
Just be a live horse
The mother is hoping that things will be resolved by the “top”.
In the process of communicating with the coal company, she did not dwell with the visitor, believing that there was nothing the young man could do. “This is a legacy of the last century, and young people do not have much to do with it, if you have a sense of responsibility, help me to reflect upwards.”
The coal company said that there could be compensation, but was vague about the compensation. “He said especially reluctantly, said to give you a hundred thousand compensation it.”
Zhang Yue also hopes that the “instructions” from the top can give the family a place to live, or get reasonable compensation. Other than that, there are no more requirements.
Over the years, in order to make a living, Zhang Yue studied clothing design, and studied economics at Peking University. She thought that a job in economics might earn more money.
Today, however, her greatest regret is that she did not study law at the time, “If I knew the law then, I would have known how to protect my family.” She wants the story to be written down because she wants to leave a testimony. Otherwise, if it is suddenly demolished, it will lose its last bargaining chip and evidence.
The father disappeared so strangely that the family was left without a house, and now that the father has returned in a blur, it seems that the house will never be recovered. From the ignorance of childhood to the helplessness of adulthood, Zhang Yue has seen the coldness of life over the years dealing with this insoluble problem.
Sometimes, his mother would say, “The only advantage I have now is that I have a disability certificate.” Such words made Zhang Yue feel deeply powerless.
“I am very sensitive and will be very perceptive to the good and evil of people. I hate my father. I now feel that a man’s success is not how much money he makes, but that he can worry about and be responsible for the family.” She has sought some lawyers, but the legal process must have enough evidence, and even more no one can testify. “I thought about petitioning, but look at those petitioning, living on the road for how many years, how big a grievance there must be, and it’s useless, isn’t it? This matter, has become a dead horse, I can only when it is alive.”
prosperity will come
The weather is getting warmer, and the garbage pile behind the house of No. 31 breeds mosquitoes and emits the smell of corruption.
Beyond the ruins is the boiler house of the former train station, where a giant chimney towers, looking like a time-traveling monument. On the side of the chimney is a viaduct and a clean, newly rebuilt road, and as you follow the road north, you can soon see the urban scene that is hard to hide between the old and the new.
Looking around, what used to be villages and farmlands are transformed into unencapsulated buildings and crane towers. Vanke, Greenland, Evergrande, all the real estate logos that can be named, can almost be seen. Yihezhuang, Huangcun town, Gaomidian, the names of these villages and towns became the names of subway stations, replaced by Central Plaza, so-and-so Tiandi, Future City. These loud names make people feel like they are in a prosperous metropolis, but they are extremely indifferent to people.
Passing by a building with a twisted shape on the South Fifth Ring Road, Zhang Yue said, “This is the big group behind the construction of the new city.” The building is weird-looking, with an elliptical plane exterior and a spiral curve from top to bottom, the curved surface reflecting the blinding daylight, like a section of writhing and twisted steel colon, the surface flooded with crystal digestive fluid.
Perhaps, in this twisted behemoth, a model of the new city plan in one of the offices is showing the coming prosperity of the 31st courtyard.
(Note: All names in the article are pseudonyms)
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