I found the most beautiful house in the whole of Lang Shi. It had once clearly been a house of someone who was of a very high status. The stone footing of huge wooden beams were carved, the house was high and interior walls solid. The beams were blackened with age.
The man we found living there was far from wealthy, in fact he was the poorest man we had met in any of the villages. He shares his house with his brother and they are both unmarried (55 and 59 years old). I learned later that their house used to be the landowners house but the government some years ago took the property of the rich and gave it to the poor. Hence how they had come to live there. The whole family had let it fall into disrepair and now the house has no side to it so they are effectively sleeping in the open air.
The brothers share a bed and earn between £6 – £8 a month collecting sticks from the mountain and selling them to other villagers. their mother had died recently and they had had to sell their little bit of land to pay for her funeral. The other villagers said we shouldn’t feel too sorry for the brothers as they were very lazy and could work on the land or do some building work if they wanted to but chose to collect sticks and live off food donations from the other villagers.
They are very much looking forward to the older brother turning 60 soon so they can get the £10 pension for month from the government. that will make a huge difference to their lifestyle.