---
type: "Topics"
locale: "en"
url: "https://longbridge.com/en/topics/41065659.md"
description: "It's hard for foreigners to understand:Why are Chinese people so obsessed with owning property.Because they don't understand:What Chinese people truly fear has never been poverty.But rather, being rootless and adrift.Europeans and Americans can rent their whole lives.Because modernization there accomplished something else:The system catches the individual.But China is different.The cruelest part of China's modernization is:It destroyed the traditional rural society,But did not truly establish a modern civil society.Clans have disintegrated,Danwei (work units) have disappeared,Land has lost its meaning,Individuals have not truly gained stable property rights or institutional security.Thus, people can only desperately cling to a house.Because the house has become the last visible form of attachment.A life-saving straw.The problem is:What Chinese real estate is really selling has never been a place to live.It's just a temporary narcotic to escape fear."
datetime: "2026-05-23T04:18:57.000Z"
locales:
  - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/topics/41065659.md)
  - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/topics/41065659.md)
  - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/topics/41065659.md)
author: "[浩浩荡荡地](https://longbridge.com/en/profiles/19784218.md)"
---

# It's hard for foreigners to understand:Why are Chi…