ST : Old Huang's capsule remedy for housing woes

Jun 12, 2010

people

Old Huang's capsule remedy for housing woes

By The Straits Times China Bureau

BEIJING: Old Huang's Capsules sound like a remedy for rheumatism or other ailments but their real purpose is harder to swallow.

Retired engineer Huang Rixin invented them as a cure for the increasing problem of overcrowding in China's big cities. He launched the country's first capsule hotel in March. Proving age is no barrier to entrepreneurship, the 78-year-old sank 30,000 yuan (S$6,000) of his own savings into the low-cost project.

His experiment targeted what is known as the city's Ant Tribe - the vast number of young, poorly paid urban graduates who live in slum-like conditions.

The small-scale launch involved eight capsules, each 2.4m long, 1.6m high, and 0.72m to 0.92m wide. The capsules are in two apartments that Mr Huang rented and then refitted.

The grassroots inventor filed multiple patents for his capsule designs and even came up with his own registered trademark, Huang Lao Jiao Nang, or Old Huang's Capsules.

The cheap rent - just 8 yuan a day - won him plaudits and tenants. In less than a month, all eight capsules were snapped up by low-wage workers and fresh graduates.

'One graduate from Jilin was so grateful he couldn't stop thanking me,' Mr Huang said. 'He arrived in Beijing to job hunt with just 1,000 yuan, and while even a cheap hotel room would have cost 50 yuan a day, my capsules came at a fraction of that.'

Tenants have to share bathrooms and kitchens with other capsule occupants.

Mr Huang thinks of himself more as a social activist than a businessman, screening each applicant closely to ensure that only the needy get them.

Capsules, he argues, are the key to solving the long-standing problem of how to house everyone cheaply in the nation's increasingly overcrowded cities.

Boarded up with cement and steel to make them fireproof and soundproof, the capsules - modelled after those in Japan, but larger - offer a 'dignified' lifestyle to occupants, he said.

After Mr Huang became a media sensation, the government said it was mulling over a change of rules: Each partitioned room must be no smaller than 4 sq m, or double the size of his current capsules.

The announcement prompted Mr Huang to shut down operations - three of his eight tenants have left, the other five will not be renewed once contracts are up. But he has already begun planning a new project. This time, he is in talks with an investor to build 100 capsules complying with the new regulations by the end of this month.

Observers will be watching the new project closely, to see if capsule hotels take off in China as they have in Japan. 'They're calling me the 'Father of Capsule Hotels' in China,' said Mr Huang. 'But more importantly, I think it's great that people are thinking about an alternative solution to our housing problems.'



Retired engineer Huang Rixin walking along the corridor of the capsule hotel he operates in Beijing. Each capsule costs 8 yuan a day to rent. Mr Huang thinks of himself as a social activist providing cheap accommodation to low-wage workers and fresh graduates. -- PHOTO: REUTERS