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<h3 style="margin-top:0;"><a style="font-weight: 500; font-size: 21px;line-height: 30px; margin-top:25px; margin-bottom: 10px;" href="http://u.osu.edu/mclc/2014/12/09/life-in-beijings-underground/" target="_blank">Life in Beijing’s underground</a></h3>
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<p>In addition to the piece below, see also “<a href="http://viiphoto.com/articles/chinas-rat-tribe/">China’s ‘Rat Tribe</a>,’” photos by Sim Chi Yin.</p>
<p>Nick Kaldis <nkaldis@gmail.com></p>
<p>Source: NPR (12/7/14)</p>
<p><a href="http://www.npr.org/2014/12/07/368760646/a-universe-beneath-our-feet-life-in-beijings-underground">‘A Universe Beneath Our Feet’: Life In Beijing’s Underground</a></p>
<div data-crop-type=""><img title="Twenty-one-year-old Liu Jing sits in her apartment two stories underground in Beijing, China. Her laundry hangs above her head because there's nowhere else to put her clothes." alt="" src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2014/12/05/highres_00113390-88081fe1f18c0e293495450e9d23ec9030e2848d-s800-c85.jpg" width="800" height="600" /></div>
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<p>Twenty-one-year-old Liu Jing sits in her apartment two stories underground in Beijing, China. Her laundry hangs above her head because there’s nowhere else to put her clothes. Sim Chi Yin/VII</p>
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<p>In Beijing, even the tiniest apartment can cost a fortune — after all, with more than 21 million residents, space is limited and demand is high.</p>
<p>But it is possible to find more affordable housing. You’ll just have to join an estimated 1 million of the city’s residents and look underground.</p>
<p>Below the city’s bustling streets, bomb shelters and storage basements are turned into illegal — but affordable — apartments.</p>
<p><strong>Claustrophobic</strong><strong> Living Quarters</strong></p>
<p>Annette Kim, a professor at the University of Southern California who researches urbanization, spent last year in China’s capital city studying the underground housing market.</p>
<p>“Part of why there’s so much underground space is because it’s the official building code to continue to build bomb shelters and basements,” Kim says. “That’s a lot of new, underground space that’s increasing in supply all the time. They’re everywhere.”</p>
<p>She says apartments go one to three stories below ground. Residents have communal bathrooms and shared kitchens. The tiny, windowless rooms have just enough space to fit a bed.</p>
<p>“It’s tight,” Kim says. “But I also lived in Beijing for a year, and the city, in general, is tight.”</p>
<p>With an average rent of $70 per month, she says, this is an affordable option for city-dwellers.</p>
<p>But living underground is illegal, Kim says, since housing laws changed in 2010.</p>
<p>And, in addition, there’s a stigma to living in basements and bomb shelters, as Kim found when she interviewed residents above ground about their neighbors directly below.</p>
<p>“They weren’t sure who was down there,” Kim says. “There is actually very little contact between above ground and below ground, and so there’s this fear of security.”</p>
<p>In reality, she says, the underground residents are mostly young migrants who moved from the countryside looking for work in Beijing.</p>
<p>“They’re all the service people in the city,” she says. “They’re your waitresses, store clerks, interior designers, tech workers, who just can’t afford a place in the city.”</p>
<p>Kim says there’s a range of units, from the dark and dingy to the neatly decorated.</p>
<p>But it’s rare to get a glimpse below. Property owners can be strict about whom they let in.</p>
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<div data-crop-type=""><img title="Zhuang Qiuli and her boyfriend Feng Tao sit on the bed in their basement apartment two floors below a posh condominium. Since this photo was taken, the couple has moved above ground." alt="Zhuang Qiuli and her boyfriend Feng Tao sit on the bed in their basement apartment two floors below a posh condominium. Since this photo was taken, the couple has moved above ground." src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2014/12/07/ahighres_00113373-1-1-9b5818221621a15d116f3d24eb7d59391b586a25-s800-c85.jpg" /></div>
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<p>Zhuang Qiuli and her boyfriend Feng Tao sit on the bed in their basement apartment two floors below a posh condominium. Since this photo was taken, the couple has moved above ground. Sim Chi Yin/VII</p>
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<p><strong>The ‘Rat Tribe’</strong></p>
<p>Beijing-based photographer Chi Yin Sim found a way. She has documented life under the city in a collection called <a href="http://viiphoto.com/articles/chinas-rat-tribe/">China’s “Rat Tribe.</a>“<em></em></p>
<p>“I started to try and find ways to get down there because I was fascinated by the fact that there was a universe beneath our feet,” Sim says.</p>
<p>The first basement-dweller she met was a young woman, a pedicurist at a salon, who lived with her boyfriend.</p>
<p>“I was just like, ‘Can I come and visit?’ And she was like, ‘Sure, come and visit us,’ ” Sim says.</p>
<p>The couple lived two floors below a posh Beijing apartment complex.</p>
<p>Sim’s photos show just how tiny these units really are. The couple sits on their bed, surrounded by clothes, boxes and a giant teddy bear. There’s hardly any room to move around.</p>
<p>“The air is not so good, ventilation is not so good,” Sim says. “And the main complaint that people have is not that they can’t see the sun: It’s that it’s very humid in the summer. So everything that they put out in their rooms gets a bit moldy, because it’s just very damp and dank underground.”</p>
<p>Sim says residents adapt to the close quarters.</p>
<p>“At dinnertime you can hear people cooking, you can hear people chit-chatting in the next room, you can hear people watching television,” she says. “It’s really not so bad. I mean, you’re spending almost all your day at work anyway. And you’re coming back, and all you need is a clean and safe place to sleep in.”</p>
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<div data-crop-type=""><img title="Xie Jinghui sometimes does some weightlifting in his basement room. Photographer Sim Chi Yin says people adapt to these close quarters." alt="Xie Jinghui sometimes does some weightlifting in his basement room. Photographer Sim Chi Yin says people adapt to these close quarters." src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2014/12/05/highres_00129806-a4ab639d7f839be25b3a3dfb1290c4ecaaa26b5f-s800-c85.jpg" /></div>
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<p>Xie Jinghui sometimes does some weightlifting in his basement room. Photographer Sim Chi Yin says people adapt to these close quarters. Sim Chi Yin/VII</p>
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<p>Of course, it’s not ideal. Sim met a number of people who were too embarrassed to have their photo taken.</p>
<p>Annette Kim from USC says it’s especially hard for the older residents, some of whom have been down there for years.</p>
<p>“They’re hoping that their next generation, their children, will be able to live above ground,” Kim says. “It’s this sense of longing and deferring a dream. And so it makes me wonder how long this dream can be deferred.”</p>
<p>But despite the laws against living underground, and the discomfort and shame associated with it, Kim says it’s still a very active market. For hundreds of thousands of people, it’s the only viable option for living in, or under, Beijing.</p>
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by <a href="mailto:denton.2@osu.edu">denton.2@osu.edu</a> on December 9, 2014 </div>
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