Every day, a few stories from Weibo get attention on twitter. This is how I know what is happening in China. There are always many candidates for this casual glimpse of the day.
Today’s story can be read along with the liquidity crisis of the real estate giant Evergrande.
The Evergrande story has been prominently reported for months in the western media. If you pay attention to financial news, you know why: the company has USD300 billions of debt, and western financial institutions have billions of exposure.
Occasionally, they mentioned the people in China who have invested their life time saving to buy a home that Evergrande builds, only to find out that the home does not exist any more. It is tragic.
But under this prosperous boom of real estate market, there are even more tragic stories, and they are rarely heard.
But, today’s story got heard on Weibo.
Because the person who is telling it is only 15 year old. His name is Liu Yukun. He posted videos of his young self using the calmest voice he can master to tell the devastating story of his family. Tens of thousands of people were so moved that they tried to help him by mentioning him on Weibo.
I first saw the mention of “that young boy from Pingdingshan” in a comment to the People Daily post (the post is about the harsh pubishment of a young teacher who dares to challenge official ideology on Weibo). People want the government controlled news media to pay attention to the Liu Yukun’s story.
Let me explain how social media in China works.
Long long time ago, there used to be lots of independent famous accounts on Weibo. They were verified with a mark of “V” next to their Weibo id. Because they were so influencial, people called them the big Vs. If you wanted public attention to your story, you go post your story to them as comment. You trusted them because of their reputation. They had millions of followers. If they took up your cause, the whole nation would talk about your story within hours.
And then, someone became the dear supreme leader and he absolutely hated it. Over the years, he got what he wanted, patiently, step by step. There is no more independent big V on Weibo. None. If your story is damaging enough, it can get deleted. And if you are famous enough (e.g. you are a grand slam winner), you can get deleted entirely. This just happened last month, and it got international attention.
That is why, it is extraordinary that a 15 year old boy from nowhere (not Beijing, not Shanghai) got attention on social media. His story is worth telling.
He showed up on Dec 9th on Weibo. I don’t have a Weibo account so I can not see it, as Weibo does not let anonymous to see past seven days. So you can see the google search results (not the actual post). :
The post says –
My grandpa's legs are disabled and he can't walk. My grandma endured the trauma and got cerebral hemorrhage stroke, now she is lying in bed. My dad's body is still not buried. We are so impoverished that I have to quit school. I am 15 year old and I am not afraid of hardship. But I hope people here can help me....
Since then, Liu Yukun posted videos almost every day, adding details to the story. On the 15th, he posted a video with trembling voice saying that many people are showing up where he lives and he is very scared. On Dec 16th, media started reporting, and the local government started responding.
So, here is a summary of the story from 163.com.
In the Weibo video, Liu Yukun told the story that in 2017 the local developer asked to demolish their family’s house. His father was disabled and was making noodles for a living. He could not agree on the demolition condition with the developer. A few days later he was brutally beaten by gangs when he was selling noodles. He was so badly beaten that he had to be hospitalized. Eventually he had no choice but to sign the agreement. However, the developer has not fulfilled the agreement to date.
Liu Yukun described his family’s situation: “My father was very stressed and depressed, he then became severely ill, but he could not see a doctor because we had no money. He died last month.”
The media called the local government which confirmed the story. But the government officials say the boy exagerated the situation. The gang that beat his dad has been convicted and paid 180,000 Yuan in compensation.
The local government also claimed that the family owns multiple properties and they are living in another house they own.
The local government says the developer has filed bankcruptcy and is in the process of debt restructuring. The boy’s father is one of the debters and the government has always been helping them.
The story got so much attention that even People’s Daily has to chime in to broadcast the local government response.
Within an hour of PD Weibo post, Liu Yukun responded.
Hello, about we "live in another property in the village", I would like to clarify. We have no money, we thought the developer will give us a home in a year, we moved to my aunt's house, and my aunt accepted us. You can check that my aunt has the certificate of the ownership of the house. On April 13 of 2021, my grandparents and my dad were all disabled. I took them to the local government for help, the government said you need to talk to the developer in their sales office. They even helped carrying us to a push cart.
The aunt added more information on Weibo.
I am Yukun's aunt, I am outside right now. When I was in Pingdingshan, the local police detained me for 8 days. I am scared so I am outside.
First, thank you to all the friends on the internet for paying attention to the problems of my family. I also need to clarify the information put out by the local government.
About the house, right now Yukun and his grandparents have no house of their own.... (same as Yukun's post)
About financial help: as far as I know, apart from (the standard) minimum assistance, there is no other help.
On November 29th, my sister and I went to our local branch of Public Complaints and Proposals Administration to tell them our story. Around 2pm, the officer said they will work with the police to give us a response (and sent us home). Around 4pm, when I was making food for my father, about 60 uniformed men came and took my sister and me to the interrogation room of the police station, kept us there until Dec 1st. They made us sign a document and sent us to the detention center. We were held there for 8 days and released on Dec 9th. They say the reason is that we "disrupted office order".
NOTE
Public Complaints and Proposals Administration : a governmental agency that is responsible for hearing public complaints and proposals nation-wide.
Even until yesterday, when I was outside, people who claimed to be the police were knocking the door of my house, saying that my nephew was posting information on social media that was not nice to the local government and they wanted to see my nephew. Around 8:30pm, Yukun received a phone call from his grandpa's phone and the man using the phone claimed to be a reporter. But we don't think that a reporter will likely go at night, and our contact information is on Weibo, they can contact us directly, why don't the reporter contact us directly? We are all very scared and we could not sleep at night. We are about to collapse.
People on twitter who are retweeting this story are citing similiar stories they know over the years: cruel developers, corrupted governments, local thugs, nowhere to get justice.
In China there is an army of petitioners who started their journey at Public Complaints and Proposals Administration and ended up being frequent visitors to the detention centers. Each family has their own story of problem, but the public is tired of listening.
So, Liu Yukun is a very rare case that gets the attention. I don’t know how long the attention will last, and what result he will get.