Young Chinese play catch-up with runaway property prices

SHANGHAI LETTER:Democracy is the least of concerns for China's youth as strong economic growth pushes apartment prices out of reach

THREE Chinese women dressed in outlandish panda costumes are leaning, with effort, across a round table to pick up cards as they play the hugely popular game Fight The Landlord.

They are characters in Chinese dramatist Sun Yue’s play of the same name, and their dialogue quickly turns to the burning issue for China’s youth today – property prices.

The majority of young people in China are indifferent to wider calls for democracy or Liu Xiaobo winning the Nobel prize, as their concerns are closer to home – the strong growth in China’s economy means many do not earn enough to buy an apartment.

"The property market crisis is the biggest crisis we are facing right now. It's one that we cannot ignore; it's a major problem for us young people," said one student at the show. She is sipping a glass of Jameson whiskey – Fight The Landlordis produced by Irish theatre group Panpan as part of a broader cultural exchange with China.

It is entirely in Chinese, but the fears of Shanghai’s young will be entirely familiar to young Irish couples burned by the collapse of Ireland’s property market.

If you don’t buy an apartment, you can’t get married, which means no children, which in turn leaves you unable to honour your parents.

Life suddenly looks grim. While the play is in Shanghai, it is in Beijing dialect. This is a nationwide issue.

Liu Yuanli and Xia Lin were in love for eight years, they married but have since divorced.

“There was too much economic pressure. After paying the rent, we had no money left. Economic pressure killed our love,” said Ms Xia. Her ex-husband agreed.

“I’m from the countryside, but don’t know when I’ll ever earn enough money to buy an apartment in the city.

“I work hard but it’s not enough to buy an apartment in Beijing,” said Mr Liu.

As part of a massive urbanisation programme, the government is encouraging farmers to move from the countryside, causing further congestion in saturated cities like Shanghai, which has a population of 19 million.

Bian Xiaosong and his wife are prepared for a tough fight.

“We bought a house and a little car. We can’t shop in expensive stores or eat in restaurants. I just hope the price of commodities rises slower than our salaries, then my dream of taking my wife on a luxury cruise will come true,” he jokes.

Talking to workers at the Foxconn plant in Shenzhen, which makes iPads and mobile phones, many of the young workers complained that they had no options in the future because, despite working long shifts plus overtime, their wages would not allow them to buy an apartment in the southern boom town.

In September, housing prices in 70 major cities rose a hefty 9.1 per cent from August.

The government introduced various measures to try and cool the property market, such as making it harder to get credit and increasing mortgage rates, ordering banks not to provide loans for anyone trying to buy a third home, and saying down payments on all home purchases would have to be at least 30 per cent of the value.

Under “socialism with Chinese characteristics”, the landlord has been transformed. When a panda asks “what is a landlord anyway?” the answer speaks volumes about new China: “People with money and power; people with houses and land.”

Then they discuss the dictionary definition of landlord: “Those who own lands, but don’t work themselves but make a living by exploiting tenants”.

These are the landlords who, along with rich peasants, counter-revolutionaries, bad elements, rightists, traitors, foreign agents, capitalist roaders and intellectuals, were targeted by the Red Guards during the 10-year period of ideological frenzy known as the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), instituted by then chairman Mao Zedong to revitalise the Communist Party, which led to hundreds of thousands of lives being destroyed.

It’s not just in mainland China that people are worried about property prices. The cost of residential property in Hong Kong has risen 45 per cent since the end of 2008, largely due to interest from the mainland.

Half-way through the play, the pandas are transformed into a real estate agent trying to sell a house to a couple. The realtor moves through the crowd with glossy brochures for the villa developments that represent the peak of this booming market, and the dialogue of the former pandas becomes frantic as they try to come up with the cash to buy the house.

“How much have we saved now? Can we borrow some from your parents first? This will be our first home, so we can borrow more money from the banks. No big deal, we can save. It’s better to buy a house with everything straight away. Let’s do it. I will ask my boss to give me a pay rise, otherwise I will find another job!”