WATCH: 7 Chinese friends build home to retire and grow old in together

A tight-knit group of friends will share a three-story home in their retirement age. Image: Unsplash

Longtime friends from China built a house in Guangzhou where they plan to grow old in together.

The seven women have been friends for over 20 years, with the largest age gap in the group at 10 years. What began as a joke among them in 2008 has turned into reality, Yitiao via The Shanghaiist reported on Monday, July 1.

A video of the friends and their spacious three-story home is featured on the YouTube channel of Chinese lifestyle video channel Yitiao, June 28.

One of the women, Jin Du, found a 700-square meter house in 2018, about 70 kilometers away from Guangzhou’s city center. The friends then pooled together 4 million yuan (P29.7 million) to refurbish the brick house.

The house stands tall in a paddy field and has a modern feel with its white exterior and hanging glass rooms. The living room and dining area are generous enough to fit them and visitors—some have their own families—while they each have individual rooms upstairs.

Even with panes of glass, the interiors have a homey and rustic feel, with items such as mats and bedside tables coming from their travels in India and Morocco. Outdoors is a pool and in the field is a pavilion where they can enjoy tea together.

They joked that each should take up a specific skill in their retired years such as cooking, growing vegetables and practicing traditional Chinese medicine to avoid fighting with one another. Niña V. Guno/JB

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