Art and the Reality of Real Estate in China and Changzhou

(Image Curtesy of Wikipedia)

The above painting is entitled "Lotus Flower Breaking the Surface," and it was created by Yun Shouping  惲壽平 , who also went by the name Yun Nantian  惲南田. This world renowned painter died in 1690, and he was born in 1633. His calligraphy and specialty in painting flowers has gone on to be come world famous. His work has been prominently exhibited outside China. I learned about this man because I happened upon his grave once, while wandering through a field in southern Changzhou. 

 

This burial site is well preserved, but it is hardly open to the public. After looking around, I decided to go looking to see if there was any memorial hall in Changzhou. According to the map, there is a former residence.  So, I got on my electric motor cycle and took a ride out to see it. Turns out, it's in a poor part of town. 

Turns out, what I found was a little underwhelming and disappointing

So, here is the former residence of a world famous Qing Dynasty artist. It sits largely abandoned, and like his grave, it's not open to the public. To be honest, this place is in a far flung part of the city's Wujin district. I found it because I was looking and searching for it with the aid of a cell phone map app. The saddest part of this was the notice pasted on the door. 

Here is a quick summary. Yun Shouping, aka Yun Nantian, had descendants. One of them was one of my college students, a few years ago. So, his descendants still live in Changzhou. So, why is this place abandoned? If this were America, those descendants would have turned this place into a tourist attraction to profit off the legacy of their renowned ancestor. Only, this is China, not the USA. And, despite all of its shopping malls and "market socialist" economic reform, China is still a communist country. This is not a criticism of China. It's just pointing out the reality, here. Chinese citizens do not own land. The government does. When Chinese people buy property, they are not actually buying property. They are buying long term leases. So, that means there are no hereditary claims to property in China. Yun Nantian's descendants have no claim on the property what so ever.

And, that is the saddest part of the above note. I can't read Chinese, and this what a friend told me, who can read Chinese and gave me a summary. Yun's present-day descendants tried to occupy this place and tried to renovate it. The above note is a legal notice against Yun's descendants, ordering them to stay away from the property. Even worse, fines were levied for renovation "damages" done to what is already a crumbling structure. In a very real way, this is a reminder of what an extremely convoluted thing the real estate business is in China. In the end, nobody own anything, and imminent domain seizures have very real teeth. 

(Besides the Wikipedia image, all other photographs are my own)