Editor’s note: All authors are paid. Share your stories (and images) about living, studying, traveling or working in China with VentureOutsource.com readers. Click here to learn more or read other readers’ stories about China. Send your story to insight[at]ventureoutsource[dot]com
“OH WANGJING. MY HOME WAS HERE 15 years ago, and I used to plant watermelon on this land before government imposed the land and I became a taxi driver,” said my taxi driver.
We were entering Wangjing. See the Google map below (area in the red circle is Wangjing).
Wangjing is a major residential area in Chaoyang District, in the northeast of Beijing, China. A city-in-a-city.
This is a big residential area growing into a new office and commercial center of Beijing. Cranes and excavators are working busily in the northeast of Wangjing developing new office buildings and residential communities as planned by Beijing government.
Besides well developed residential communities all over Wangjing, northern and middle-eastern region are already well developed with offices of international companies including Microsoft; Caterpillar, Mercedes-Benz, Sony-Ericsson, Motorola, Agilent… Plus, plenty of local start-up companies being recruited by Wangjing Science & Technology Park.
Wangjing is located at the outside corner of northeast fourth ring and inside corner of northeast fifth ring. This is a very good locations because of the Beijing Central Business District area to the south; Beijing’s most popular villa area to the north; Olympic park to the west; and capital international airport to the east. The Chinese consider northeast has good feng shui. Wangjing is one of the dreaming home areas for plenty of white collars in Beijing.
Home sweet home getting expensive
In 1997, when one of my classmates moved to Wangjing with his family, Wangjing was still a suburb with no high buildings. Village of original residents planting here are imposed by the government and they moved home to new buildings. Living here is not convenient. You have to go for almost half an hour to purchase living materials like rice, vegetables, meat and fruit from the market.
It takes almost half an hour’s walk to reach the nearest bus stop. People moved here to continue their life and looking forward to every changes happening because the government promises to develop this rural area into a new and modern residential area of Beijing.
In 2005, unit price of flat in a good community was 7,000 to 8,000 RMB per square meter. This was a very high price at that time since 5,000 RMB monthly salary is already considered quite well as a white collar.
However, looking back from today in 2011, that was so cheap since currently unit price is already more than 30,000 RMB even reaching 40,000 RMB per square meter. This means a standard home of 90 square meters will cost a family 3 million to 4 million RMB. Of course, employees’ salary did not grow so radically.
Sleeping city one-third Korean
People living here are of relative high education level. As far as I know, first generations moved into the re-constructed Wangjing are from education bureau and construction bureau. Newcomers to Wangjing area are also with high education level. Almost one-third of the Wangjing population is Korean.
Wangjing has a nickname: Sleeping city. Reason being is there is almost no office, no shop and no commercial activities here. People living here typically work and shop in other places, then come back to Wangjing at night and leave in the morning. But, this has been changing.
Government ever since started to develop Wangjing with goal to make it a place where people can work, shop and live — all in one. Wangjing Science Park Phase 1 and Phase 2 are successfully launched.
Supermarkets and department stores (some with children play areas) including Walmart, Carrefour, IKEA, Ito Yokato, JiaMao Center, New World department store… are opened. Two subway stations Wangjing West and Wangjing East are constructed. People living here enjoy the developing atmosphere and life here is becoming more enriched each day.
SoHo China spent 40 billion RMB to purchase 48,152 square meter building land area, is working on Wangjing SoHo commercial real estate project in northeast of Wangjing. The highest building will be 200 meters high and is to be completed in 2014 for commercial and business use. This will boost the commercial activity and leisure community atmosphere of Wangjing in the near future.
Entering midnight, lights in the flats shut down one by one. The residential area and the city itself are so quiet and peaceful. The day has past and tomorrow is another beginning. Wangjing is only one of the many residential areas in Beijing.
In Shanghai; Shenzhen, Chongqing and in Xi’an there are many more residential areas that host plenty of middle class citizens. Their life is normal but brilliant. They work hard and contribute to the city’s growth. They suffer while benefit from the development of the city and that of the country.
They are thinking and implementing their ways to live better. For their parents, for their children and for themselves. They believe the future will be much better than today and they can fulfill their dreams one day.
About the author
Ping Wang is a Chinese citizen working for IBM and living in Hong Kong. (She is also a VO GlobalNet member. You can click here to connect directly with Ping.)
Share your China story
All authors are paid. Share your stories (and images) about living, studying, traveling or working in China with VentureOutsource.com readers. Click here to learn more or read other readers’ stories about China. Send your story to insight[at]ventureoutsource[dot]com.
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