Ｃｏｎｔｅｍｐｏｒａｒｙ Ｃｏｍｍｕｎｉｔｙ“Ｚｅｒｏ－Ｄｉｓｔａｎｃｅ”Ｎｅｉｇｈｂｏｒｌｉｎｅｓｓ

ＬＩＵ　ＱＩＯＮＧ

CHINESE people hold to the saying, “A close neighbor is worth more than a distant relative.” This centuries-old interpersonal wisdom is challenged by mass moves from open-plan courtyard homes to modern apartment buildings. Reinforced concrete walls threaten to insulate, isolate and alienate next-door, upstairs and downstairs neighbors. But another feature of contemporary life – cyberspace – empowers Chinese society to rise to this challenge. Todays community online services reinforce the tradition of neighborly friendship and support.

Three Generations of Neighborliness

Ms Guo has moved house twice in her 52 years. She has, in her own words, experienced “three modes of neighborhood relations.”

Her early years were spent in a courtyard in Jiaodaokou, in Beijings Dongcheng District. The close, harmonious relationship that existed among the households sharing the courtyard made them seem like one big family. If a problem arose, the members of all the households would sit together to discuss it and work out a solution. Each familys friends and relations were familiar to them all and there was always someone around to keep a watchful eye for strangers. Consequently no-one bothered locking their doors.

This comforting closeness changed drastically in 1995, when Guo and her husband moved into an apartment at Daoxiangyuan in Haidian District. Despite Guos participation in various activities organized by the Daoxiang- yuan Neighborhood Committee, she had little contact with her neighbors. “I felt very depressed at that time. There were more than 20 families in my building but as we seldom met, we barely knew one another. I missed the neighborhood intimacy of my courtyard home,” Guo recalls.

Upon retiring in June 2006, Guo moved again, this time to a new apartment in Longjin Garden, Huilongguan in the northern suburbs of Beijing. Huilongguan is a 34-sq-km municipal government economical housing project, built over the last decade. It comprises 42 residential sub-districts that house 200,000 residents. It is the capitals largest residential community.

Upon arrival in Huilongguan, Guo felt friendless and isolated, until her son showed her how to use the Huilongguan Community Web. After reading, and posting her own, messages on the community bulletin board, Guo became acquainted with the fellow music lovers among her many neighbors. She is now the elected organizer of choral performances on festive occasions.

The Huilongguan Community Web BBS has also given Guos son access to a 100-member peer group. They use the bulletin board as a medium for discussing topical issues, as well as for organizing their social life.

Ms Guo is delighted with the breadth of communication the community web offers. As she says, “My up-to-minute, efficient, BBS-based neighborly relationships are as harmonious as those in my old courtyard, but with a far broader scope.”

Neighborly Visits Online

The Huilongguan Community Web was founded in 2000. By January 8, 2008 it had 240,000 registered users who had posted more than 1,310,000 messages. Yan Nisu, 35, works at an IT company in Zhongguancun. She and her husband have been living in Huilongguans Yunqu Garden since 2000. She finds the Huilongguan Community Web invaluable. It has forums on such topics as childcare, house refurbishment, upcoming events and activities, as well as daily life tidbits. New information appearing daily on each forum generates a wealth of remarks and follow-up messages.

Community online forums are a medium for neighbors to communicate and help one another when the need arises. This reporter noted when visiting Huilongguan community forums that a message posted by one resident mentioning that he had caught a cold had elicited responses from 20 or more residents, recommending various remedies. Any domestic dispute shared via the bulletin board also draws a barrage of advice and suggestions from forum friends. And should any resident face the prospect of eating dinner alone, posting a message soon brings an invitation to a group dinner party.

“An ideal degree of intimacy and privacy” is Yan Nisus evaluation of the contemporary mode of neighborly relations within the Huilongguan community. She finds it a favorable contrast to life in a crowded, mixed courtyard, where the residents get in one anothers way, and know all there is to know about everyone, from marital disputes to what they had for a dinner, by default. She far prefers the updated, less passive mode of neighborliness she experiences at Huilongguan.

One advantage of life in residential courtyard communities and government department dormitory compounds is that residents are immediately aware of any intrusion. Larger living spaces and better housing conditions often alienate neighbors, to the extent that they dont recognize one another. There have been several reports from various cities of break-ins and robberies at urban apartment homes. Although carried out in broad daylight, they have gone unnoticed by neighbors, who have wrongly assumed bands of burglars to be house moving company workers. But as Yan Nisu points out, “Community webs and forums have restored the former security that was part and parcel of neighborhood relationships as well as reinforcing the intimacy and solidarity ingrained in them.”

Li Hao, Yan Nisus husband, explains, “As residents visit one another via the community web, we know neighbors living several blocks away as well as close by.” Li goes on to say that as larger living spaces and a busier working life make people more conscious of a need for privacy, they hesitate to disturb their neighbors by knocking at the door. “We find the community online forums an ideal platform for neighborhood communication. Neighbors that have a particularly close relationship use network tools, such as QQ and MSN.” Li Hao has several groups of associates in the community whom he meets respectively to play cards, ball games or discuss business. His wife, in turn, has groups that she meets to go shopping or take the children on outings.

Tools of Community

Alliance

The functions of community webs in contemporary communities in Beijing and other large cities extend far beyond those of interpersonal communication. They are also the domain in which residents exercise their rights and protect their interests, for instance, in disputes with real estate developers or managers.

When residents at the Beijing Fulicheng Residential Area discovered defects in their windows, they used the community online forum to inform the developer. The forum chair, known in the virtual world as Da Mo, handled the negotiations that followed. When confronted with the united householder front the developer readily cooperated. He agreed to refurbish the windows in question, and also to exempt the relevant residents from one months estate management charges.

“In addition to acting as a venue for the owners committee, the neighborhood committee and the estate administration, the community web also gives residents the chance to participate in community management,” says Wang Chao, Deputy Director of the Changqing Garden Administration Office in Hubeis Wuhan City. One example is the message, entitled “Difficult Walkways” that one resident posted on the Changqing Community Web in June 2007. It complained about the uneven surface on walkways that threatened trips and falls. The estate administration immediately passed this and similar complaints, in writing, to the developer. Shortly afterwards, the walkways were renovated. Wang Chao confirms that his office pays close attention to opinions expressed on the community web, and that browsing the community web pages is part of his and his colleagues daily work.

While visiting the estate management section of the Changqing Community Web, this reporter noted that the Changqing Garden Administration Office indeed responds to every message it receives via the web. “In the past at least two days would pass after making a complaint to the neighborhood committee or estate administration office before any move was made to remedy the problem. These days, maintenance workers arrive at my door within two hours of my posting a complaint on the web,” says local resident Mr. Zhao, with a beam of satisfaction.