Chapter 12 How big a house does the average person live in?

I remember that it was the first day when I arrived in Hong Kong. I was driven to the gate of a thin and tall building in the southeast of Hong Kong Island. My husband also came to pick me up. When I got out of the car, he said: "We are here, we will live here— —a mansion in an exclusive residential area of ​​Happy Valley.” "Mansion?" I looked around, "Where is it?" I was very surprised at the time: "Just this thin 'chopstick' in front of me?" After entering the gate (two feet wide), the front hall of the building is also very narrow, and can only accommodate four or five people.

Now the elevator came, and when the door opened, I couldn't help laughing, my husband said: "Don't laugh, open the door later, be careful to laugh your belly out." Sure enough, the elevator had reached the 22nd floor, and when the door opened, my My stomach is going to burst, why?Not only are the elevators small in Hong Kong’s mansions, but the corridors are also too small, so small that when you get out of the elevator, you can insert the key into your own door lock with your hand.So on the second day, six other journalists from Beijing and I were talking about housing in Hong Kong. Every inch of land is expensive, and tall buildings can be erected on a piece of land as big as a palm. This is simply too much fun——

The situation in Hong Kong is basically known to everyone. There is less land and more people.Compared with the scale of this highly modernized society, the houses where the common people live in are not on the same plane, and the prices are frighteningly higher. Someone once asked me if it is expensive to buy a house in Hong Kong, and I said "not expensive". The house price here is almost ten times that of the mainland, and it is also ranked first in the world.The person who asked the question immediately swallowed his tongue back into his stomach: "Ten times? The housing prices in Beijing are already high enough!" I said, "Yes, Hong Kong houses cannot be measured by average housing prices. Good houses are too good, but poor houses The house is too poor. The concept of ten times is just an example. If you buy a house in Beijing for 4,000 yuan per square meter, then you can buy it in Hong Kong for 4,000 yuan with almost the same conditions. One foot. How big is the area of ​​one foot? It’s about 1/10 of a square meter, so isn’t ten feet worth 40,000, and the price has increased by exactly ten times?”

The No. 18 Chenghe Road Building, which we CCTV bought in Happy Valley on Hong Kong Island before Hong Kong’s handover in 1997, would not have the atmosphere of a “luxury house” if it were placed in Beijing. ?The answer is "Happy Valley", and the other party will immediately "swallow their tongues".But how big is the "mansion" we live in in "Happy Valley"?Over fifty square meters, the living room can accommodate a few people, but the two bedrooms can only accommodate a double bed and a single bed.For me who have only lived in a big house in Beijing in recent years, the pressure of space is not easy to adapt to.

At first I didn’t believe in two bedrooms and one living room, where two people live. This kind of housing conditions is already quite enviable in the eyes of Hong Kong people. Later, I lived for a long time, and I would visit local friends’ homes from time to time. In a house of 10 square meters, the average Hong Kong family has to live with several members. Three generations of the old and the young live together in the same room, with bedrooms, living rooms, bunk beds, and floor bunks. This situation is very common. I remember the first time I went to interview a local. When I chose the interview location, I said to the interviewee: "Just go to your house, sir." Li kept saying, "My house is too small, and I'm afraid the camera won't be able to support it." How could I believe it?There are five people in their family, wives and children. Among them, two daughters are already 21. One of the younger daughter and son is in middle school and the other is in elementary school. Such a family must have a space for group activities.However, when I actually walked into his house, I was really biting my teeth—the house was much more crowded than I imagined. The kitchen, toilet, two bedrooms and the living room together only cost more than 30. square meters.In addition to the bed surface, the parents' bedroom is surrounded by cabinets all around the walls. The three children's cabin has an area of ​​less than 6 square meters, and the three small beds will definitely not fit.I saw that there was only one narrow bunk bed in the room, so I asked impolitely: "Don't you have three children in your family? So where does the third one live?"The hostess saw that I was really concerned, so she said embarrassedly: "The drawer is under the bed." Then she immediately demonstrated to me, and she pulled out a large flat plate from the bottom of the bunk bed: "Look, my son's bed, pull it out at night." Come out, spread out the quilt, push it back in the morning, there is no way, the room is too small, that's the only way to go."

From then on, I understood why Hong Kong people generally don’t take guests home easily. I met one of the most open-minded and optimistic interviewees. As a result, there was no camera in the room during the interview. The cameraman had to open the door and put the tripod on the corridor, so that he barely finished the interview... As of March 2006, according to figures given by the Real Estate Chamber of Commerce of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce: the per capita housing area in mainland China has reached 26 square meters, while the average housing area of ​​Hong Kong urban residents is only 7.1 square meters, which is smaller than Japan's 15.8 square meters. It is still "small" to go halfway.

If it is particularly difficult, one day the air conditioner in my dormitory broke down and leaked water. I had to ask the building management staff, Mr. Wang, to call a repairman in Hong Kong as soon as possible. The master brought the workers in, and I saw that the workers were worrying that there was no place to put a ladder, so I was very sorry and said to Master Wang, "I'm sorry, this house is too small for you to work." Who knew that Master Wang immediately burst out laughing, Repeatedly said: "Your house is still small? My rented house is as big as yours, and there are four families living there." I thought the "four households" he mentioned meant that there were a total of 4 families in a family. There are four people, but Master Wang immediately corrected: "No, it is four households, four households that have nothing to do with each other." More than 50 square meters, excluding the public area, how big is the inside?Live in four households?I was almost stunned, my eyes full of suspicion: "Really?"

"Really," Master Wang was very sure, "the big house and the small house are one household each, the living room is divided into two, and there are two households, one of which has two parents-in-law and two children—" "Then how do you live?" Master Wang said: "Let's find a way. In my opinion, Hong Kong people are smarter than people anywhere in the world in terms of using living space. Some people replace all the doors in their homes with push-pull ones in order to save space. They have all been used, packing boxes, bookshelves, what else should I do?"

A very interesting phenomenon that I soon discovered, is that the living area in Hong Kong is generally very small?The models of many household goods sold in the store have also been changed and miniaturized.We don’t need to talk about small items such as pots, pans, ladles, and spoons. We only talk about sofas and beds. The sofa cushions I brought from Beijing became huge when I took them out in Hong Kong; The bed is not straight, and the front, rear, left, and right sides are pulled down. I don't understand that these things are standard products. How come they are not suitable when they arrive in Hong Kong?One day my husband suddenly slapped his forehead and said: "Oh, I forgot, the size of a double bed in Hong Kong is different from that in the Mainland. The width is not 1.5 meters, but 1.35 meters. The length also changes, and it is also larger than normal. Shorter ones.” That’s why none of the bed sheets and bedspreads I brought from Beijing fit properly.

If the people in the mainland only compare housing with Hong Kong people and "have nothing to do to have fun", they should quickly run around the house and jump up and down to rejoice.In recent years, standard double beds of 1.5 meters have become rare in Beijing's large and small furniture cities, and they tend to be completely replaced by "1.8 meters". There is no such concept, but if you have money and can buy it, where should you put it when you move it home?