Chinese man, 78, lives in supermarket despite owning flat offers property to new friend for care

A flat-owning Shanghai grandpa who lives in a supermarket to avoid loneliness gave his home to a nanny he met at the shop in the face of his son’s disapproval.

Qiangming, 78, has been living in the staff entrance of the supermarket in Shanghai for nearly a decade.

He sleeps on a mat, rests in the supermarket’s dining area during the day and carries 50,000 yuan (US$7,400) cash in his pocket, plus a DV recorder.

He describes himself as a drifter, not a beggar. The 20sqm flat he owns nearby is worth around one million yuan (US$150,000).

Qiangming, who has a long beard and looks unhygienic, said he feared living, and dying, in the flat alone after his divorce in 2000.

  

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