Have you seen the movie Dr. Zhivago? When Zhivago returns to Moscow from the front lines, he discovers that ten families have moved into his luxurious home without his knowledge, and it is controlled by the "Residential Administration Committee Director," an old woman with a harsh face and a Lenin jacket. Though it is his own home, under the sharp eyes of his new neighbors he is as careful as a house guest wherever he goes, in order to avoid being caught out by someone for capitalist "decadent living and inappropriate thinking."
For the families of many overseas Chinese from Fujian and Guangdong provinces, though this protrayal is accurate enough, it is still a little too moderate. They did not even have the right to swallow their pride and accept their shrunken space and live in their homes. Their fate was typically to be swept out of house and home and even to be sent down to villages in the countryside. In this way years of blood and sweat by overseas Chinese were turned to nought.
After forty years, as wave after wave of Taiwanese and Hongkong capital flows into real estate in the PRC, the tale of the homes of overseas Chinese is worth a listen.
China was founded on agriculture, and the idea that "to have land is to have wealth" is deeply entrenched in the national psyche. Therefore, in days gone by when overseas Chinese had saved up a little money, they would always send some back home to repair family gravesites, build new homes, or buy land. On the one hand this provided support to the parents, and on the other it was one way of preparing for one's own retirement and return to the homeland.
"Some overseas Chinese built big and luxurious houses, or invested in real estate in the cities and rented out part," points out Liang Zhaocheng, director of the Propaganda Section of the Overseas Chinese Commission in Guangdong Province. In many of the major cities of Fujian and Guangdong, such as Xiamen or Guangzhou, you can see ranks of finely decorated homes with a Southeast Asian or Western flavor in the city center; most of these are so-called "overseas Chinese houses."
Half a century later, the overseas Chinese houses are still standing, but they are gashed and damaged, suggesting something of the vicissitudes through which they have passed....
In the early 1950s, the Communist Party launched a huge "land reform campaign." All land was nationalized and redistributed by the state. Landlords and wealthy peasants felt the brunt of the campaign, but overseas Chinese and their families could not escape. "In fact it was a mistake to equate the overseas Chinese with the typical landlords or rich peasants," points out Lin Huaming, director of the Overseas Chinese Commission in Xiamen. At that time it was specially stipulated in the land reform law that the houses of overseas Chinese were acquired through their efforts abroad. Except for those houses that were rented out and definitely involved "exploitation" and which had to undergo "national reform," the government could not confiscate those houses in which the families of overseas Chinese were living or those rented out which did not exceed 150 square meters.
However, as the land reform movement intensified and became infected by "ultra-leftism," even the overseas Chinese houses that should not have been confiscated could not escape. Strange things were happening such as turning the houses over to government agencies, reselling them at low price after confiscation, or dividing the rooms up among town residents.
After the Cultural Revolution, there was a huge "reversal of verdicts" of past cases. Deciding what to do with the overseas Chinese houses that had been improperly confiscated was one of the thorniest problems faced by the authorities in Fujian and Guangdong.
Ye Fei, a vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, has said, "In the past we did stupid things, and trampled on the interests of the overseas Chinese, especially in depriving them of their 'roots.' This could not but cause them deep pain, and we must clear up the debt that we owe."
Nevertheless, historical debts are hard to calculate, much less pay back. There is still quite a long way to go before this account is cleared.
"In our work to implement the policy on overseas Chinese houses, in Xiamen City alone there is an area of more than 460,000 square meters of overseas Chinese housing that must be returned," notes Lin Huaming. The situation in Guangdong Province is even more serious. There are more than 2 million square meters in Guangzhou and more than 600,000 square meters in Shantou, and most of these are located in the commercial districts in the city centers. The total area of housing to be returned to overseas Chinese in the rural villages of Guangdong comes to more than 17 million square meters.
"In fact, these figures are still being calculated," says Liang Zhaocheng. The policy of actively returning houses has only been going on for the past five years. Many overseas Chinese are scattered abroad, and have only heard about the program in a roundabout fashion before coming to investigate. Also, for example, in 1990 after the PRC established diplomatic relations with Indonesia, a large group of overseas Chinese from there came forward to apply.
"It's not hard to implement the right of ownership of property; what's hard is figuring out the right of use," says Lin Huaming, getting to the core issue.
Ownership is just a sheet of paper. For the government or the governing agency to transfer ownership from the name of the current occupant to the overseas Chinese owner is just a matter of a stamp on a piece of paper. But often a single overseas Chinese house is now occupied by many families, so "implementing the policy" of returning the right of use for a single house means finding many new residences for people to move to. This is the problem that most troubles the authorities.
"Right now our basic principle is: 'Whoever occupies the residence should return it; whoever tore it down should pay compensation,"' says Su Zhanyue, deputy secretary general of the Guangdong Association for Relations with Overseas Chinese of Hakka Origin. Lin Huaming explains further. If for example there are people who work in a government agency living in the building, then their unit will be asked to see them as homeless,' and give them first priority for new space so they can move out. If this option is not available, then basically the agency at the appropriate level must build new housing and move them as a unit. Or, for houses that were originally rented out to start with, if the overseas Chinese are willing to continue to lease them, then they can make a contract with the current occupant without interference from the government...."
Though there are variations in method, it is hard for them to conform at one and the same time to the law, to logic, and to a sense of what is right. This is particularly true when the government must build new housing, which is very expensive, so there are many problems in actual implementation.
For example, some overseas Chinese houses that were confiscated and resold have since changed hands many times over. Naturally the current resident, who acquired the house quite lawfully, will not consider the house as being "occupied." Or what about an overseas Chinese from Taishan in Guangdong Province who paid from abroad for a house in Guangzhou City--should the responsibility for settling the restoration of ownership lie with Guangzhou or Taishan? Who will pay the costs? In other cases, although many overseas Chinese houses are old and dilapidated, they are located in bustling commercial districts in great locations. Given the mainland habit of "preferring a bed in the city to an apartment in the suburbs," if people resolutely refuse to move out, what can be done?
Besides the practical difficulties, many local officials feel that it was completely natural that the buildings should have been confiscated in the first place, so why should it be necessary to call it an error and return the houses? There are those who want to retaliate and ask overseas Chinese to pay accumulated maintenance fees, management fees, and taxes for the past forty years, frightening overseas Chinese away. Or they just create obstacles in the paperwork to put off the day of return.
Although the handling of restoration is not ideal, the patience and tolerance overseas Chinese feel toward the mother country shows through.
"Overseas Chinese traditionally have loved their country and their hometown, so they can understand," suggests Liang Zhaocheng. In fact many overseas Chinese have long given up the idea of returning to their hometown to live. They don't really care if they get their houses back; they just want the Communist Party to acknowledge its mistake. If the house is returned to them in name only, this is a form of psychological compensation, and that's often enough.
There are those who feel that they have been successful abroad because the setting, or fengshui, of their old home was auspicious for them, which is the only reason they want to nominally recover the house. There are others who go back to their old homes and merely want to set aside the room they were born in, or their marriage chamber, and they leave the rest of the house to the current occupants. And there are others who, upon receiving notification of the return of their homes, feel so happy they make donations to charitable organizations.
"We can only resolve the problem of the old overseas Chinese houses one step at a time, and we must prevent a repeat of the same problem with new overseas Chinese houses," says Lin Huaming, raising another issue. After the mainland opened up to the outside world, over 100,000 people from Fujian and Guangdong took advantage of their links overseas to become the "new emigrants." Sometimes they have been forced to give up the houses allocated by their work units to covetous coworkers, or have been forced to pay exorbitant fees to retain them. One hears even more frequently of people who lose their precious and long-awaited opportunity for a home just because they have moved abroad. Will these become new overseas Chinese housing problems? It's worth keeping an eye on.
[Picture Caption]
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In Fujian and Guangdong, from where many overseas Chinese hail, many of the houses in the central districts of major cities belonged to overseas Chinese. With urban renewal and development, these old houses face destruction.
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Most overseas Chinese homes in Guangdong are built in an eclectic style that combines Chinese and western motifs. This green-brick western style two-story house has traditional ancestral tablets set up in the central hall.
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After mainland China opened up to the outside world, the hometowns of the overseas Chinese regained their vigor, and the lives of their relatives gradually improved.
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Delicately decorated and western-influenced overseas Chinese houses still show some of their character despite years of neglect. The photo was taken in Taishan City in Guangdong Province.
In Fujian and Guangdong, from where many overseas Chinese hail, many of the houses in the central districts of major cities belonged to overseas Chinese. With urban renewal and development, these old houses face destruction.
Most overseas Chinese homes in Guangdong are built in an eclectic style that combines Chinese and western motifs. This green-brick western style two-story house has traditional ancestral tablets set up in the central hall.
After mainland China opened up to the outside world, the hometowns of the overseas Chinese regained their vigor, and the lives of their relatives gradually improved.
Delicately decorated and western-influenced overseas Chinese houses still show some of their character despite years of neglect. The photo was taken in Taishan City in Guangdong Province.
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