Property agent pushes miniscule Shanghai living space describing mini opening as ‘window on the soul’. Social media observers mock tiny window saying tenants need not worry about closing it when it rains. — SCMP
Video clips of a living space in China with a single window as small as “a shooting hole” have gone viral on mainland social media.
The eight-square-metre attic room with a miniscule window in Shanghai’s Pudong New Area triggered a heated online discussion after a property agent shared video of it on Douyin, the mainland version of TikTok, on July 28.
As the agent, surnamed Ding, shuts a custom-made glass aperture and refers to the hole – the size of his hand – as a proper “window”, he colourfully describes it as “the soul’s window”.
According to Ding, the attic room is in a two-storey property partitioned into six rooms and is being offered for rental at 1,000 yuan (RM635 or US$140) a month.
According to property agency 5i5j, a 95-square-metre flat in the same residential compound, which is an hour away from the city centre by train, rents for 7,000 yuan (RM4,446) a month.
Ding also shared images of another room in the same flat which also has a nano window, adding that one room had already been rented on July 31.
The shockingly tiny aperture reminded some of “a shooting hole” – the small opening in the wall of a fortified structure to allow the firing of weapons.
Social media observers were quick to ridicule the living quarters.
“Don’t throw away your face mask as you can use it as a curtain,” quipped one.
“Tenants will not need to worry about shutting the window when it rains,” said another.
A third commented poignantly: “The landlord knows we have to work all day and therefore do not need a room with good lighting.”
Average residential property prices in Shanghai have dropped significantly in the past two years, according to China Index Academy, one of the country’s largest independent real estate researchers.
However, the current average price 63,410 yuan/sq m (RM40,279 or US$8,800) for a new residential property and 62,120 yuan (RM39,460) for resale residential property, according to real estate listings platform Fang.com, still outstrips the city’s average monthly salary of 12,183 yuan (RM7,738).
Another online observer said: “I would rather earn less than live in such a space in a first-tier city like Shanghai.”
Last December, a nano-flat in suburban Shanghai triggered an online buzz for squeezing a toilet, kitchen and bed into a six-square-metre room.
Rented for 380 yuan (RM241) a month, the room was seen by some people as “a good deal”. – South China Morning Post
