Living Rooms in Beijing: On the Sofa at the Wang’s
Views of living rooms in the Far East (Photos: Tanja Reith)
18 August 2009
Date: the 21st century. Place: the 21st floor. In Beijing, Tanja Reith took a look at people’s living rooms. The impressions captured by the photographer reflect the changes in family relations and answer the question: who lives with whom?
In China’s rapid urbanization process, the way people live and their values are also changing. For most Chinese, high rises are a demonstration of progress, their growing prosperity and the country’s development. In spite of frequent poor construction quality, they usually offer their residents a far better living standard than older living quarters. Most of all, they provide individual space; space to realize one’s own inclinations and own style of living.
 |
 Photo gallery: House Beautiful in Beijing (German) |
During her stays in Beijing, German photographer Tanja Reith looked for ways to visibly document the changes in living conditions there. “I was curious to see how the people respond to the newly added space in their homes.” In most cases, they used to have only a few square meters per person. Yet, much has changed: the living space per person has risen from three square meters in the year 1978 to roughly 23 square meters in the year 2007.
The living room, as part of the whole, is a microcosm in which personal and social relationships are shaped and revealed. Living rooms allow space for individualization while also expressing one’s own status. They reflect both the traditional and the changes in family relations and also provide information about how their dwellers spend their time.
Every living room has a television; an indispensable part of life. The couch and coffee table are arranged for watching TV comfortably. With rapid changes in social values and in view of uncertainties with regard to spiritual needs, television fills a void. It diverts, numbs, dupes; it runs alongside and all the time. The television is the centrepiece of the living room, the family’s meeting place. “On the one hand, a television is a status symbol,” says Reith, “on the other hand it symbolizes a modern lifestyle.”
Multigenerational households are still not a rarity today. “Respect for the older generation and obedience are very deeply rooted,” explains Reith, “although the younger generation would like to lead a more independent life than their parents, many of them take care of their parents out of respect and love – and sometimes also because they don’t have sufficient pensions.”
Tanja Reith is a photo designer and Sinologist. Born in 1972, she has lived in Beijing for a number of years. Her exhibition 21 x 21 Leben im 21. Stock in Peking im 21. Jahrhundert was shown at the Cicero Galerie für Politische Fotografie, Berlin in 2007 and at the German Embassy, Beijing in 2009.
