R ELACIONES CUANTITATIVAS ESTRUCTURA ACTIVIDAD / PROPIEDAD

Another form of the cases’ post-project relations featured the common idea of the “dream house”. Friendship reported this view in relation to the residents’ feelings about their attachment to the new house, the memories about the past conditions and the gratefulness to the supporting forces. The

71 _{Chi Pheo: is a character in a famous short story of Nam Cao writer, an influencing author of Vietnam}

literature in 1940s. The character became wicked monster of the village after 7-8 year unlawful imprisonment, who is cruel and untoxicated (Wikipedia, 2016)

attachment to the new house, for example, was illustrated in: “we now have such a lovely place to live in…We miss it wherever we go. We just want to come back to our home each time we go anywhere…,” (VC5). People’s memories about the previous conditions were described in the following examples:

…this is a dream. You can never imagine how we lived here before. We never dared to imagine about our current houses even in our dream (VC6); We could never forget the days when we were sleeping under the rain, on the nylon mattresses, having the pots to take water drops from house roof. Really scared to think back about the past (VC12).

Another statement came from a senior person who had been living in the area for more than 30 years: “We had to take clay from our rural home village, to prevent the water from getting into the house. Now no one has to worry about the weather, [smile]…” (VC2). People’s gratefulness was expressed in the following statement:

The total size of my house was 12m2 _{and we dried clothes by hanging them}

wherever we can in the house,… now we are living in such a nice place, … we thank the project and the community very much for achieving the project (VC7).

Binh Dong 1 also expressed a common idea about the “dream house”. Like Friendship, the view also related to feelings about the new house, memories about past conditions and gratefulness. People’s feelings about the new house are expressed in the following examples:

Now we have more stable and structured houses (TC7); We cannot imagine how our life can have such a day when we have a roofed home” (TC12); “Binh Dong 1 neighbourhood completed their house construction in October 2013 and celebrated their unforgettable first New Year 2014 together”.

Recalling the celebration of the first New Year in the new houses, residents said: The weather was abnormal being so cold during our first Tet holiday in the new houses72 _{but we felt very warm as we had better houses (TC11).}

Another respondent reported: “We had such a big New Year celebration. Despite that we had to pay the loan, we all put on weight as we had better sleep” (TC5)”.

People’s feelings about the new house were also expressed in statements showing their mutual understanding of and care for others. For example, some participants stated: “Mr [one resident with kidney problem] is having weekly hospital treatment but he has been improving a lot. He looks much

72 _{The weather in the South of Vietnam is normally hot during the dry season from November to April. The Tet}

better than before thanks to the new home,” (TC9); “And Mr [a former army soldier] no longer has nightmare and now can sleep much better. Before he always screamed at night…” (TC8). Memories of the past came up from following statements:

I have a family of seven, we lived in the edge of the river. Some other families as well….you can never imagine what endless kind of things that we have experienced (TC1); Before, we had to pay more for electricity supplied by intermediate provider,… the waste was dumped directly to areas surrounding our places (TC3); We lived in shacks, built with bamboo, locating by the canals. Flood waters got to the knees….the environment was polluted, the odour was terrible. We did not have any toilets… (TC6). Grateful feeling was expressed, for example, in the following statement; We are very happy. Thanks to the project, we now all have a house (TC9).

In summary, the above section describes the positive idea of the new house, which implies not only the improvement of the house’s physical fabric and the security it provides but also the emotions it stirs up regarding the feeling of attachment, gratefulness and memories of the past. Given the cases’ contexts73_{, the idea of a dream house was remarkable because of its significance to one’s life both}

materially (a big value asset) and spiritually (a home). This personal sense was shared among the residents, thus apparently becoming a coherent idea that suggests a binding mechanism for each neighbourhood’s relations. This transition may explain the change in the use of pronouns from “I” and “my family” into “We” and “our community” in the interviews when participants described post- project relations. The finding suggests several implications for later discussion regarding the

connection between human and non-human factors, the influence of a non-human factor (the house) in social ties and the transition of individual feeling into a communal sense.