Pensioner Refuses to Leave Without a Fight.

“This is my house, I have to defend it,” decreed a rascally determined Kevin Mc Callister in the 1990 film Home Alone. Forgotten by his parents in the frenzied holiday exodus, Kevin finds himself completely alone bar two roguish robbers with their eyes and crowbars set on the Mc Callister home. With his house under threat, Kevin launches a raid of pellet guns, swinging paint pots and sizzling door handles in a bid to protect his family base and bravely guard basic morals.  

In Kunming, China, 70 year old Mr Zow embodies the same wilful mantra of the impishly heroic Kevin but he is putting his into practise for real, beyond the safety of a cinema screen. The building in which the pensioner lives is at risk of compete ruination from developers who intend to demolish it and build a multi-million pound complex. Mr Zow’s refusal to leave is putting this lucrative deal on hold. Despite reported daily threats and intimidation from the developers, the pensioner is passionately and defiantly waging a one-man war against those who threaten his home and his rights.

Dressed in combat uniform, he hurtles petrol bombs at intruders; the weapon explodes into a crimson flame of retaliation and for now at least, it serves its purpose in keeping the developers out. However, stark warnings can be delivered to the senior from outside the realms of what has now become his own fortress- his daughter’s crumpled car is one example of the developer’s persistent menace.

Outside, the development manager denies his company uses violence or threats. “You’re a liar,” a handful of people protest. A woman amongst them claims her home was demolished in the middle of the night.

She and the rest of the buildings residents have been evicted. Mr Zow is the only one that remains. It would seem he intends to stay, whatever the cost; “Law is law,” he states. “They think they can do what they like. I would rather die to protect my rights,” he vows. 

Besides morals, it is debateable why the seventy year old would want to continue living here. The developers have already reduced the building to rubble- a shattered remnant of family homes. But with ample supplies of homemade weapons stored on the roof and a constant guard on patrol, Zow has made the collapsed bricks and debris his stronghold; the individual fighting back against a repressive hierarchy. This is no film, but clad in his warfare costume and fight to the death ideal, Zow could have very easily plunged himself into fantastical realms. As he drops another petrol bomb from the rooftop, cascading downward and combusting into voracious flames, it is reminiscent of a cinematic scene. Like Kevin Mc Callister, Zow protects his home against all the odds and what some would regard, against common sense. It is a dangerous, radical battle he is fighting, particularly in communist China. If only there were more people brave enough to be as valiantly senseless as him.