China social media moved by loving relationship between couple and landlord who cooks for them, cares for newborn
- Man, 71, rents woman room, she marries, has baby, now all live like family
- Widower cooks meals, minds child, gives red packets, no longer lonely
Social media in China has been touched by the family-like relationship between a young Chinese couple and their 71-year-old landlord.
On Douyin, the mainland version of TikTok, millions have watched video clips of the elderly man interacting with the couple’s baby, as if he were the biological grandfather.
The baby’s father, surnamed Kang, said his wife rented a room in the old man’s flat in 2017, after she graduated from university and moved to Shanghai for work.
Her landlord was there for her when she began dating her future husband, when she married him in 2020, and when the couple had their baby, nicknamed Ximi, in 2022.
The kind old man even carried their daughter from the hospital to their home when she was just a day old.
Kang said he suggested they move out after they married, but his wife was concerned that might leave the elderly widower lonely.
Instead, Kang moved in, and they have been living together like blood relatives ever since.
Kang said their landlord treats them like his family.
He cooks them meals and looks after Ximi when the couple are busy with work. He also gives the baby red packets during festivals and on her birthday.
“We are family,” Kang said.
He said they appreciate the landlord because his support gives the two young migrant workers the opportunity to work for a better future.
“Families are not bonded by blood, but by love,” one person said on Weibo.
“The couple receive the landlord’s kindness, and in return they relieve his loneliness,” said another.
“Shanghai has many elderly people who live alone away from their children, while the parents of young migrant workers mostly live back in their hometown. It’s nice that these three can look out for each other,” a third said.
The arrangement surprised some, because it is traditionally believed to be unlucky to rent to pregnant tenants.
The old saying: “Better lend house to a dead person than a newborn baby” originated in rural China.
The belief is that a person who dies in a house will leave their fortune in it, but a person born in a house will take away the household’s luck.
Nevertheless, close relationships between tenants and landlords regularly warms hearts on social media.
Last December, a man in eastern China’s Zhejiang province was hailed as “the most beautiful landlord” for giving a 20 per cent rebate on his tenant’s rent every month, so that she could buy better food for her children.
