Stories from Xiaoshu I Part 2
"We built this house after the year 2000, and little by little, I packed these walls with earth
"We built this house after the year 2000, and little by little, I packed these walls with earth
Look at the tiles" - the asbestos tiles of his house - "they're too heavy for all the villagers to help me transport them from the commune" - There were no roads for vehicles back then." The town is 20 km away (altitude ≤ 800 m), and the village is situated on a mountain at an altitude ≥ 2000 meters.
"A few years ago" - Xiaoshu continues, as time is often blurred in his conversations - "they (the village executives) came to ask me to demolish my house and build a new one for us. I refused because I'd just built it! They came here again and again, they even marked a huge '拆 (demolish) on my wall!"
"In the end, they demolished two rooms. I now plant vegetables in them. However, I kept this one (the one where we sit, the one where he and his wife cook and sleep), brought cement and pasted the word 'demolish', it seems no one noticed, or maybe they changed their minds? That's how I can keep my home for now."
The road leading to this village was built some ten years ago with the help of the government, which then financed the construction of new houses along the road for all the households in the village. Xiaoshu's family also received a new house along the road, but they never moved in. The new house has become a warehouse, or sometimes a place for the children to stay when they return from the city.
