Beneath the streets of Bejing, China lies a system of tunnels and passages that were designed to be a fallout shelter in the case of a nuclear war. Many portions of the tunnels still have electritity and running water for inexplicable reasons.
There is an entire culture of people who call the tunnels home and the government has decided to ignore them. These are far more than just a few homeless or squatters calling the tunnels home. There are entire cities of people located in these tunnels. China has done census readings of the tunnels and it was estimated over 50,000 people live below in the tunnels. Several census officials were attacked when they approached the people and one was reported to have been murdered.
The residences of the "homeless" Chinese people all seem to be strategically placed in the middle of tunnels where you can't get past them without invading their living spaces. Most people who encounter these settlements turn the other way for fear of attack being in a place they have no business being in and far away from police.
I have found a few pictures online though of what lurks behind these settlements within the tunnels. It appears that the people who live beneath the streets have taken to disposing of their dead on their own, and have formed their own culture and religion. Attempts communicate with the tunnel people of China has resulted in mixed results. The older ones have been more cordial and able to communicate, but the younger ones have been known to be hostile and the ones who don't attack have great difficutly in understanding Chinese. It is evidence that they are forming their own dialect of Chinese and it's estimated that within the next 20 years they won't be able to understand Mandarin or Cantonese at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment