This story is destined to be much-blogged, now that Boing Boing have posted it (with added value, of course). Developers in Chongqing city, west-central China, are refusing to pay this resident’s £1.3m asking price – “he wants 20 million yuan, or he’ll stay till the end of the world.”
Looks like the 10m-deep moat around his house is going to change his world, if not end it. It’s an impressive attempt at shifting the guy, by forcing him to abseil to work. If it were the UK, the developers would probably then prosecute him for trespass as soon as he set foot in the trench.
I doubt we’re going to get them, but I’d love to know more details about this story, before pitching into some half-cocked, allegorical tale of symbolic bastions against capitalism, etc.
(via Ananova)
Update 13-Mar: Tish Shute of Ugotrade has an excellent post on this story, which provides much more background to this story than I could ever have hoped to find on my own (see comment below). I was unaware of the concept of “bridge bloggers” before, and Tish’s info is hugely important. I’m going to post about this again soon, but in the meantime I recommend reading the post, following the many links and having your mind blown by its significance.
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This story and picture of “China’s Most Incredible Holdout” traveled around China’s blogs and the original story was lost, elaborated on, and then pieced together and rediscovered by Chinese netizens, and finally translated into English by “bridge bloggers.”
See my blog for a summary of this story http://www.ugotrade.com (March 10th, 2007 post), and links to the “bridge blogger” and chinese stories, if you get a moment.
The story was investigated and reconstructed again, but ultimately not verified in terms of facts and figures. The power of this picture is that it over rides the specifics!
And, now the story of “China’s Most Incredible Holdout,” is appearing in Boing Boing and many blogs around the world in yet another incarnation. Very Interesting!
Yeah, there’s just no way this is an actual residential house. The lot would have to be accessible by a public road, connected with water supply, etc.
Tish Shute is right, it’s very interesting to see how a picture can take on a life of its own, loosing and gaining the story behind it. Multiple times!
Check it out there is now a “bridge blog” translation of an interview with the owner of “the hold out.”
[...] Shute at UgoTrade for letting me know more about the owner of the house I wrote about in “New man-made island in China“. Bridge blogger Peering Into the Interior has a translation of a long interview with Mrs. [...]
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Thank You
http://www.ygroupsblog.com/blog/2009/04/15/groups-update-missing-groups-aol-missing-members-message-search/