China puts family’s home, car up in the air
| September 2, 2009 | 6:01 AM
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They may not give a hill of beans about property rights in China, but one man there has gone to new heights to keep the government from taking his home.
Literally.
Construction crews have dug the ground out from under 60-year-old Qu Liming’s house in China’s northern Shanxi province, forcing his family to climb a sheer cliff to reach it. Their car — a Chevrolet — has been left stranded on a 50-foot column of dirt.
Workers are leveling the hills around the home to make way for a government housing project. The family had been ordered to leave, but they apparently told officials to take a flying leap. Apparently the official response, loosely translated, was “back at’cha.” Soon the bulldozers started plowing out the ground from under the house.
Qu Liming, whose son saved the house by blocking the dozers with the car, says he isn’t making a mountain out of a molehill. He built the house hoping to stay there the rest of his life.
Sounds like a pretty down-to-earth dream.
Read more at ananova.com.
In other news out of China:
- The government has allowed world champion ping pong player Wang Hao to have a girlfriend. Yeah, they control that, too. Read more at nytimes.com.
car stranded, china, Chinese housing project, family's home excavated, ping pong world champion, wang hao
