Mole People?

A video report posted on CNN earlier today featured reporter Eunice Yoon travelling to the underground homes that many have taken to in Beijing. The idea is that housing in China's capital has become so ridiculously expensive, or at least unaffordable to the general population, that people are being forced to move into old air raid shelters and other subaltern residences. It's horrible that the first thing I thought of when I saw this video was "Oh, look; China's version of the mole people!"; but honestly, can you blame me when the title of the report is China's Mouse Tribe?

After actually watching the report, that clearly isn't the case. When I was little, the mole people were a small subset of the population who chose to live in the sewers and had their own little communities there; they dressed in rags, never came out in the sunlight, and started to look and live like, well, moles--clearly more urban legend and cautionary tale than anything else. But this isn't the case with these people in Beijing. They live perfectly normal, above ground lives outside their homes and are not simply taking part in an alternative lifestyle; actually, they are forced to live this way because they have no alternatives. It's worth wondering if, in our current housing crisis with unemployment high and people unable to afford to keep their traditional housing, we will soon have our own mouse tribe in the US. Perhaps then the mole people will become reality.