Related News
Home » Opinion » Opinion Columns
How stupid to link act of patriotism with buying apartments!
By Wang Yong |
January 19, 2009, Monday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
"BUY an apartment, and you are patriotic," says a local Chinese official in her bizarre call to beggar the poor to bail out housing speculators.
Wang Aihua shocked the nation with her bold statement last Monday, delivered live on a local TV station in Hefei, capital of Anhui Province. Wang is the director of the city's urban planning bureau.
It's grotesque for a government official to urge the public, most plebeians, to buy a particular product in the name of patriotism.
One Netizen jeered: "If buying a condo is patriotic, how about buying a condom?"
In her fortunately vain plea to ordinary people, Wang acted as if every household or individual in Hefei was able to afford a new condo, and was in need of one. The fact is that housing prices in Hefei, as in many other cities in China, perch way beyond most people's purchasing power.
Even if everyone in Hefei could afford a new condo, you cannot even suggest someone is unpatriotic if he or she is content to live in a shabby hut that consumes less energy than a spanking-new apartment.
If buying an apartment makes someone patriotic, then vulture capitalists and corrupt officials who hoard houses would be the most admirable patriots, kids who eat into their parents' life savings would be national heroes, and Americans would be more patriotic than Chinese.
Wang and her likes should heed what Beijing Mayor Guo Jinlong told real estate developers on the same day: "Ordinary people don't like you because you've pushed up housing prices irrationally. How can I love you, now that I can't buy a square meter with my monthly income?"
In Beijing, the housing-price-to-income ratio hovers around 15:1, compared with 5:1, regarded internationally as reasonable. The figure is not available for Hefei, but another fact suffices for the purpose of this article: It takes a family of two 12 years to afford a 90-square-meter apartment in Hefei, while the reasonable world figure is three to six years.
Wang was not the only one to link conspicuous consumption with patriotism.
Last Tuesday, one day after Wang's buy-a-condo plea, Li Zhe, a member of the Beijing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), said: "I suggest patriotic consumption. Everyone and every institution should spend what they make in one year just on consumption."
How about two years' income? How about your life's savings? It seems that the one-year figure came to his mind as a passing whim.
People like Wang and Li remind me of an ancient Chinese emperor, Sima Zhong (259-306 AD) who frowned when someone who came to report a nationwide famine: "Why don't they (the plebeians) eat meat?" (Marie Antoinette said: "Let them eat cake.")
Xinhua news agency says that housing, medical treatment and education are so expensive that they have become "three new mountains" on the back of many ordinary Chinese. (The old three mountains: imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratic capitalism.)
Paid vacations
There are sober minds, though. Beijing Mayor Guo is one, and Shanghai tourism official Dao Shuming is another. Like Wang and Li, Dao was talking about consumption. Unlike those two, Dao urged Shanghai to give people more paid vacations to stimulate tourism or provide more vocational training.
In an annual meeting of the Shanghai committee of the CPPCC last Wednesday, Dao said: "Many white-collars have strong purchasing power, but little time to spend."
Summer vacations would be ideal, he said. "Work efficiency tends to be lower in summer as people languish under sizzling heat, while energy consumption peaks." In his view, Shanghai can save energy as well as giving people more time to travel.
Consumption is not a sin. The issue is: What do you consume? Do you want to be a miserable house slave or a happy travel bug?
Wang Aihua shocked the nation with her bold statement last Monday, delivered live on a local TV station in Hefei, capital of Anhui Province. Wang is the director of the city's urban planning bureau.
It's grotesque for a government official to urge the public, most plebeians, to buy a particular product in the name of patriotism.
One Netizen jeered: "If buying a condo is patriotic, how about buying a condom?"
In her fortunately vain plea to ordinary people, Wang acted as if every household or individual in Hefei was able to afford a new condo, and was in need of one. The fact is that housing prices in Hefei, as in many other cities in China, perch way beyond most people's purchasing power.
Even if everyone in Hefei could afford a new condo, you cannot even suggest someone is unpatriotic if he or she is content to live in a shabby hut that consumes less energy than a spanking-new apartment.
If buying an apartment makes someone patriotic, then vulture capitalists and corrupt officials who hoard houses would be the most admirable patriots, kids who eat into their parents' life savings would be national heroes, and Americans would be more patriotic than Chinese.
Wang and her likes should heed what Beijing Mayor Guo Jinlong told real estate developers on the same day: "Ordinary people don't like you because you've pushed up housing prices irrationally. How can I love you, now that I can't buy a square meter with my monthly income?"
In Beijing, the housing-price-to-income ratio hovers around 15:1, compared with 5:1, regarded internationally as reasonable. The figure is not available for Hefei, but another fact suffices for the purpose of this article: It takes a family of two 12 years to afford a 90-square-meter apartment in Hefei, while the reasonable world figure is three to six years.
Wang was not the only one to link conspicuous consumption with patriotism.
Last Tuesday, one day after Wang's buy-a-condo plea, Li Zhe, a member of the Beijing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), said: "I suggest patriotic consumption. Everyone and every institution should spend what they make in one year just on consumption."
How about two years' income? How about your life's savings? It seems that the one-year figure came to his mind as a passing whim.
People like Wang and Li remind me of an ancient Chinese emperor, Sima Zhong (259-306 AD) who frowned when someone who came to report a nationwide famine: "Why don't they (the plebeians) eat meat?" (Marie Antoinette said: "Let them eat cake.")
Xinhua news agency says that housing, medical treatment and education are so expensive that they have become "three new mountains" on the back of many ordinary Chinese. (The old three mountains: imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratic capitalism.)
Paid vacations
There are sober minds, though. Beijing Mayor Guo is one, and Shanghai tourism official Dao Shuming is another. Like Wang and Li, Dao was talking about consumption. Unlike those two, Dao urged Shanghai to give people more paid vacations to stimulate tourism or provide more vocational training.
In an annual meeting of the Shanghai committee of the CPPCC last Wednesday, Dao said: "Many white-collars have strong purchasing power, but little time to spend."
Summer vacations would be ideal, he said. "Work efficiency tends to be lower in summer as people languish under sizzling heat, while energy consumption peaks." In his view, Shanghai can save energy as well as giving people more time to travel.
Consumption is not a sin. The issue is: What do you consume? Do you want to be a miserable house slave or a happy travel bug?
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
