Chapter 1691 - Excerpt from Rural Notes
Lingao Times Editor's Note:
As the First Five-Year Plan enters its concluding year, agricultural and rural work faces unprecedented challenges. This newspaper is publishing a serialized account from Notes from Staying in the Village by Comrade Yun Suji, a Senator active on the Senate's agricultural front. Through the vivid examples he records, we feel more truly the current reality of agricultural development lagging behind, rural grassroots governance remaining weak, and farmers' lives falling short of expectations. These observations deepen our understanding of Secretary of State Ma's important instruction at the Twelfth State Council Meeting: that "the policy of transforming rural areas and transforming farmers cannot change, and its intensity cannot be reduced."
Main Text:
Only by being grounded can one gain confidence. Facing the myriad threads of rural work, only by settling one's heart and going deep into the frontlines can one understand the thoughts and hopes of the farming masses, grasp the truth of current conditions, and seize the initiative in agricultural, rural, and farmer-related work. To resolve the difficulties in rural development, we need more such down-to-earth investigations.
Recently I have frequently gone to the countryside—sometimes visiting five or six villages in a single day from dawn to dusk. But too often it was merely looking at flowers from a galloping horse: arriving and departing in a rush, learning little of the truth, never thoroughly researching the difficulties. This recent stay in a village in Haikou's rural area has allowed me to remedy the regrets of previous investigations.
Weather: Sunny turning to cloudy; northwest wind force 3-4 rising to 5-6.
Early this morning I made my way to Tankou Village, Longtang Town—a new immigrant settlement beneath Pingshen Ridge. This time I traveled light: only two guards, taking a Heaven and Earth Society fishing boat upstream along the river. To avoid the layered accompaniment of officials and not interfere with county and township comrades' work, I gave them no advance notice. I wanted to plunge straight to the bottom with a single pole, quietly stay in the village, and do my utmost to achieve "village undisturbed, county officials undisturbed."
Just past nine in the morning, we arrived at Tankou. This is a standard village west of the Nandu River. The villagers' houses stand as neat as military barracks. The whole village comprises over 160 immigrant households with more than 500 people. Dry land mainly grows sweet potatoes; irrigated paddies yield double-cropping rice plus a season of green manure; various miscellaneous grains fill the marginal lands. According to county cadres, the economic level ranks lower-middle among immigrant villages—not the poorest, but far from prosperous.
I had expected more people in the village during the slack farming season, but after entering I hardly saw anyone. Only upon finding the village head did I learn that most villagers had gone out for corvée labor. Rather than seek lodging first, I made my proposal immediately to Village Head Old Huo: "Now is exactly the time for farmland water conservancy construction. Eating and lodging aren't urgent—let's go to the construction site first and see the situation."
Village Head Old Huo is in his forties, honest and straightforward—an outstanding cadre we selected from among the Shandong immigrants. He resisted. "The construction site is all water and mud, Chief. You can see it from here." I insisted: "It doesn't matter. What's the point of going to the countryside if one fears dirt and hardship? I'll stay in your village tonight—we have plenty of time."
Along the way, Old Huo mentioned that the village was surrounded by too many low-lying wetlands, prone to waterlogging whenever summer rains were heavy. "Perfectly good land that can't be planted!"
Only after walking some distance did I realize just how much low-lying land there was. This was alluvial soil deposited by a backwater bend of the Nandu River—truly deserving of the name "water village." Ponds and pools lay scattered like stars across a chessboard. After quite a detour, we arrived at the water conservancy project site. The first thing I saw was a young man in his twenties driving a Simmental-breed yellow ox to pump water.
Many people were gathered above and below the ditch, all digging earth and carrying it with shoulder poles. Tools were relatively simple—essentially human digging and shoulder carrying; there weren't even many wheelbarrows. The groundwater level here is high. Though it was the dry season, accumulated water still submerged the workers' calves at the ditch bottom, necessitating constant ox-driven water pumping. All the laborers had rolled up their pant legs to work in the water. Although the weather here is much warmer than on the mainland, winter water temperatures remain quite cold. I couldn't help feeling how difficult it is for farmers.
Directing the construction from the embankment was a young woman who looked barely twenty, yet displayed considerable experience in her work. I inquired and learned that she had designed the project herself and was presiding over its construction.
I was secretly surprised that someone so young was doing design and supervision work. Further questions revealed she was a senior student of the architectural planning grandmaster Senator Ji Runzhi, having studied under Senator Ji for five years. She is that rare thing: an all-around naturalized citizen construction engineer. She and her senior brother Ji Shu have been engaged in design and construction work since they were sixteen. Projects designed and built by them span Hainan, Taiwan, and Jeju. Truly, heroes have emerged young since ancient times.
I asked about the specifics of the construction. Ji Yuan explained that this was a drainage system, including channels and supporting sluices and ponds. Upon completion, it could drain excess water from approximately 1,000 mu of land.
"Currently, the terrain at Tankou is unfavorable for agricultural production," Ji Yuan told me. "Part of the cultivated land lies in the hilly area by the river—high ground requiring water lifting for irrigation. Another part by the riverbank is low-lying, requiring drainage instead."
Listening to her, it seemed clear that for agricultural production here to take a new turn, considerably more labor and resources would need to be invested.
Seeing the scene of labor in full swing, I couldn't restrain myself from participating. I asked the accompanying guard to lead the ox from the front while I drove it from behind. Before long I was drenched in sweat. I took off my coat and tossed it in the grass at the field's edge. The young man immediately picked up my clothes and held them carefully. This small detail touched me.
The Simmental ox pulled the waterwheel with steady effort, very obedient. An old woman boiling water nearby told me, "This ox is going to calve in another ten days or so. Can't let her walk too fast—afraid of tiring her out."
I asked whose family the ox belonged to. The old woman said it was "jointly hitched"—most villagers were too poor to afford a large animal alone. Eventually, under Old Huo's proposal, seven or eight households pooled resources to raise such an ox. Even so, they had to apply for a partial loan.
"Care for her more meticulously than ancestors," the old woman said. "Just counting on her to give birth to a calf so we can pay back the loan."
Hearing this, my heart ached. I hadn't expected farmers here to still be this poor. The situation couldn't compare at all with the several advanced villages I had visited. The gap between villages had already opened wide.
Because it was still within the New Year holidays, work stopped after four o'clock in the afternoon. I returned to the village with everyone. Tankou Village is also a standard village built uniformly by the Senate to resettle refugees. Houses and streets are very neat, but the level of cleanliness is unsatisfactory. Some households let pigs run wild through the streets foraging for food—not only unhygienic but a vector for disease.
I discussed the villagers' living conditions with Old Huo. Land yields here are on the low side. The village generally still eats two meals a day: solid in the morning, liquid in the evening. During the busy farming season, it becomes two solid and one liquid. Total grain consumption is similar to other relatively good villages, but the proportion of fine grain is even smaller—and even the proportion of coarse grains has dropped. Old Huo reported that quite a few farming households frequently consume pumpkin as a "vegetable substitute" for grain. I wanted to know how much grain reserves the farmers had, so I walked into the village's collective granary—only to find a brand-new small steam water pump stored inside. When I asked Old Huo about it, he explained it was intended to support the irrigation system for the high-ground dry fields.
Following this lead, I followed him to the north end of the village. The terrain there is high, but the land is level. Old Huo said this area spans over 200 mu. The land has been graded flat, and the pipes connecting to the irrigation canal below the hillside are neat and intact. Even the concrete pad for installing the water pump has been constructed—but there were no traces of use. I asked, "Why hasn't the water pump been installed?" The accompanying village cadre glanced around: "We don't know how."
Later, Old Huo told me that after this Qiongshan Agricultural Demonstration Red Flag "Divert Water Uphill" project was built, it had never been used—because installing a steam water pump requires skilled labor, and users must undergo training before taking up the work. But Qiongshan has no master who knows how; they have to wait for Lingao to send one.
"This wait has been several months already. Who knows when they'll come to install it."
Standing on the cement base for the water pump, I spotted a water conservancy project by the Nandu River that also seemed never to have been put into use.
"That's the 'Thousand Women Embankment.' Last year the county organized a thousand immigrant women to build it. Even the central government sent people—reporting in newspapers, making propaganda. But in the spring the canal broke, and the supporting sluice gates never arrived either. The Heaven and Earth Society applied for materials allocation, but the superiors haven't approved it yet. Without cement to repair it, without sluice gates, we can't use the water even when there is water!" Old Huo's frustration was written plainly on his face.
The awkward predicaments of "Divert Water Uphill" and "Thousand Women Embankment" exposed a blind spot in our work. Project construction must solve problems of supporting facilities, usage, and management—otherwise, it amounts to wasted labor and squandered resources.
Although Qiongshan is a rare major agricultural county in Hainan, problems of water scarcity for engineering purposes and poor utilization of water conservancy projects exist simultaneously. This is a common issue. Implementing the Senate's agricultural vision requires not only increasing investment in construction projects but also improving and perfecting management systems and mechanisms.
Coming back from the fields, it was already past one in the afternoon. The village head's wife had boiled sweet potato porridge in the kitchen and fried a pancake flower with oil, salt, and chopped green onion. Having worked all morning, walked many li on paddy field paths, and having no side dishes, I drank two bowls of sweet potato porridge and ate a large bowl of pancake flower—but still didn't feel full—so I ate two more local eggs. No one accompanied me; there were no polite formalities. Lunch took scarcely ten minutes. By contrast, in some official activity settings, eating becomes a burden that wastes both time and money. Such burdens are "uncomfortable at both ends." Changing the method of official hospitality can be very simple: first, don't require people to accompany the meal; second, firmly enforce the principle of paying from one's own pocket. With these two points achieved, the "chronic illness of eating and drinking" can be solved easily.
After the meal, I came to the village office. All the main village cadres had gathered. The militia captain had served as a soldier in Shandong and returned after being discharged due to age. Honest and sincere yet shrewd, he also spoke the new language quite well. The accountant is a young man we cultivated ourselves. The ledgers here are incomplete. At my request, Old Huo dug out several notebooks from a cabinet: records of village cadre meetings, Heaven and Earth Society work registries, and records of Red and White Council activities, among others.
(End of Chapter)