Home sweet home

Inflation is hitting China hard. As costs of pork, vegetables, housing and other necessities rise, people are being forced to cutback on expenses and risk seeing part of their savings washed away.

One group that is particularly susceptible to inflation is students, seeing as they don’t often have much money to begin with. A story in the Southern Metropolis Daily reports many university students unable to pay rising rental costs are being forced to seek alternatives. As a result, a makeshift structure of “box dorms” has been loosely constructed near their university in Guangzhou. Nanfang Reporter Katei Wang provides the partial translations below:

These “box dorms” are made of prefab houses and are divided into 4 areas. There is a total of 120 houses with each area having its own iron gate. Each dorm is 18 square meters: boys live on the ground floor and girls live in the first floor. The dorms have air-conditioning, a water heater, spotlight, 8 beds and other facilities.

Chen, a student from Zhanjiang city in the south of Guangdong Province, failed to rent a house in the village nearby the campus so he moved into a “box house” where he just pays RMB150 per person monthly with other 3 peers.