

Home sweet home

Dingzihu (钉子户) is a Chinese word that means a household or person who refuses to vacate their home to make way for real estate development. Virtual China translates the word as 'nail house' because "they stick out like nails in an otherwise modernized environment".

Last week Ananova published a story about a very persistent nail house (pictured):

Developers have turned a house into an island in China after the owner refused to move out. The villa now stands alone in a 30ft deep man-made pit in Chongqing city, reports Jinbao Daily. The Chongqing Zhengsheng Real Estate Company wants to turn the area into a £40m 'Broadway' square, including apartments and a shopping mall... ... "The villa owner refuses to move, so the real-estate developer has had to digout all around it to force him to," says a saleswoman at Weilian Real Estate Sales Company. "He wants 20 million yuan, or he'll stay till the end of the world."

A photograph of the house in question has been circulating on the Chinese Internet during the last few days. It's posted on the popular Tianya forum: The coolest nail house in history. The post is accompanied by a short description, roughly translated below:

At the beginning of March, a photo called "the coolest nail house in history" stirred up a lot of debate. Within the space of a few days, this photo was widely circulated and posted all over the Internet, and a lot of media as well as the general populace were interested in the affair. This happened