The Eye of Jinxi, the most famous nail house in China’s Jianxi Province, was recently abandoned by its owner, who couldn’t stand the noise of the cars passing by his home 24/7.
The Eye of Jinxi made news headlines in China in April, when a highway built around it was inaugurated. Like other nail house owners across the Asian country, Huang Ping (pseudonym) refused the regional government’s offer to buy his property and decided to stick to his guns even when everyone else in the area moved out. At one point, Huang got a large enough compensation package of approximately 1.6 million yuan ($223,000), but didn’t agree to the condition that the price be paid in two installments. He would live to regret his decision, because the government decided to simply build the road around his property, turning it into an isolated nail house.
With no soundproofing at all, the nail house, which looks like an eye in the middle of the new highway when viewed from above, became virtually uninhabitable when traffic started flowing in April. Huang and his family held out as long as they could, but the constant noise and trepidation from large trucks passing by forced them out eventually. It’s unclear when the family moved out, but people started noticing the broken windows of the house and overgrown weeds around it last month.
Contacted by local news outlets, the owner of the Eye of Jinxi confirmed that he and his family had abandoned the property because of the incessant traffic noise and trepidation. They preferred to rent a home in a nearby town, and could not say what would happen to their old property. Even if the nail house were to be demolished, Huang would only receive a fraction of the compensation originally offered to him.
“You must have a strong heart to face the villagers’ ridicule,” one person mocked Huang on Weibo.
“To be honest, in this desolate mountain area, if the country didn’t build roads to improve people’s livelihood, how much could you sell your house for? Will anyone buy it?” someone else wrote.
