The house is rented, but the child’s childhood is not

My friend M was moving, and I sent him a message on WeChat to help him. He said he was just helping me, but he was just looking after the kids. If I remember correctly, this should be M’s fifth move in Shenzhen. M is a colleague I met at my first job in Shenzhen. At that time, the company was in Luohu, so we shared a two-bedroom apartment in an urban village near Laojie. Later, my job changed and I moved out of the shared house. M and the other roommates also moved out within three months of staying there. Later, I went to Nanshan, but M, who didn\’t like to change positions, still stayed at his old club in Luohu. After moving out of the rental house, she lived in Henggang, where she got married and gave birth to her son Junbao. One of us lives at the end of the city, and the other lives at the end of the city. We gather less often and stay apart more often. We rarely arrange dinner parties, and we only communicate by phone occasionally. I went to have a birthday drink on Jun Bao’s first birthday. By then she had moved from Henggang to Huangbeiling. It is still a village in the city. Compared with the house we rented together before, the two-bedroom apartment M now rents is somewhat different. The house is on the fourth floor, and the ninth floor to the top is in the middle of the whole house. The living room is a bit dim, with very few things in it. There is a TV set in the middle, and a dining table and some folding stools are placed opposite the TV. On both sides of the room, there are strollers and toys on one side and a small table on the other. Rack folding fabric wardrobe. The two rooms are quite square. The master bedroom can accommodate a 1.5 meter large bed, and the second bedroom can accommodate a 1.2 meter small bed. I asked M at that time, why not buy a sofa? She said: \”Why buy a sofa? Moving will be troublesome.\” Two years later, she moved from Huangbeiling to Futian again, this time from Futian to Nanshan where I live. I looked at the cardboard boxes piled in a corner, and there were only three large boxes, plus a few plastic bags of luggage. Except for the large refrigerator and washing machine, the others are just clothes and quilts. I was wondering, does the military treasure not have a bookshelf, crawling mat, toy cabinet? When I inquired about it, M’s answer was exactly the same as last time: “The house is rented. The fewer things you have, the easier it will be to move.” Everything is done to save trouble when moving, and everything is convenient for myself. In this 45-square-meter home, in addition to having a baby Cars and dining tables, nothing else. If the economy doesn\’t allow it, M\’s monthly salary is 8,000, and my husband\’s salary is not low as a programmer. It stands to reason that they live a relatively prosperous life. Apart from a different attitude towards life, I really can\’t think of any other reason. In this regard, Li\’s attitude towards life is completely opposite to hers. Shenzhen is a city with a lot of land. It is very difficult to have your own small house on this piece of land. Housing prices are high, jobs change quickly, and pressures are unpredictable. There are many reasons why families working here cannot afford to buy a house and dare not buy a house. Li said: \”If I can\’t afford a new house of 50 square meters, I can rent a second-hand house of 100 square meters.\” She has a sunny attitude and can always give people positive energy, so her friends call her \”Inspirational Sister\”. Li works as a businessman in an Internet company, and his salary is almost the same as M. Although their material income is the same, their quality of life is very different. Li spent 4,500 yuan per month to rent a two-bedroom apartment with an area of ​​100 square meters. She said she was interested in this apartment because the living room was big and bright enough for her children to play. When we first rented it, I went to IKEA with her and bought a lot of children\’s products, including tents, tatami mats, bookshelves, toy tables, small decorations… After some clothWith this arrangement, Li transformed the living room into a children\’s paradise. I took my daughter there to play, and the two little guys just stayed there, reading books and playing with Lego. It was very comfortable. I especially appreciate what Li said: The house is for rent, but the child\’s childhood is not. I saw a couple online who spent 400,000 yuan to build a small rental house in order to leave beautiful memories for their children\’s childhood. The owner of the house, Yvonne, and her husband, Meng Qi, work in Beijing. After getting married, they had a son, and the couple particularly hoped to give their child a green, sunny and earthy childhood within their own capabilities. So, they walked through the streets and found a small courtyard that was a bit old-fashioned and not very convenient. As a designer, Yvonne saw the potential of the yard at the first sight and immediately signed a ten-year lease with the landlord. The way it looked when I first rented it, my friends said that since it was rented, there shouldn’t be too much drastic renovation. But the couple has their own ideas, and if they want to live there, they have to live in a place that suits their needs. When Meng Qi started to design the sketch, he suddenly thought of the scene in Miyazaki Jun\’s animation \”My Neighbor Totoro\”: a child running and jumping on a wooden platform with bare feet, rolling on the tatami, pulling the sliding door back and forth with force, and getting off. Sitting on the platform to catch the rainwater with my hands on a rainy day… \”Well, I want to give it a space like this.\” After Yvonne\’s renovation, a house from Hayao Miyazaki\’s animation appeared. For fun, I like this place the most. He will ride the tricycle back and forth, or run on it, or lie down on it and play with toys. The sun corridor is an extra meter of space left outside the house wall. This is also a place for the whole family to bask in the sun alone. Many people may ask, what should I do after the ten-year lease period? Yvonne said that she has not thought about what she will do ten years from now, but only wants to live the present ten years well. Yes, the house is rented, the life is yours, and the memories are yours too. Some people say that looking at their house, it looks a little warm and fake. Wherever it is fake, it is just the life we ​​yearn for. There are many pear gardens written by Hayao Miyazaki. Through their own transformation, the Yvonne couple made the scenes in their dreams come true. It is not that they are rich, but that they understand life better than us. When we rent a house, we rent a shelter from the wind and rain, but we live in our green years and our children’s wonderful childhood. For the sake of our children, we must also build a good life.