Chapter 1692 - Excerpt from Rural Notes (Continued)

I am particularly interested in these authentic "local texts." Seeing the activities of the Red and White Council, I recalled that this council was jointly promoted by the Catholic Church of Lingao and the New Daoism. Curious about their work, I inquired further.

Old Huo explained that the Red and White Council had indeed accomplished a great deal, especially the "Australian Rites" they promoted in the village. Because the ceremonies were solemn and the costs low, they had become increasingly popular among villagers recently. When I asked about the specific methods, it emerged that the council operates on a believer-volunteer system. Catholic and New Daoist adherents in each village provide volunteer labor whenever weddings or funerals occur for their fellow villagers. The various materials and props needed for ceremonies are supplied free of charge by the council. The master of ceremonies presiding over rituals and the chanting for salvation are also provided without cost by both religions. The program has been well received by the masses.

Turning to the records of the village committee's most recent democratic life meeting on June 15th of this year, I found that the township had randomly organized villager representatives to conduct a secret ballot evaluation of the three village cadres, including the village head and deputy head. All three received fifteen "votes affirming work achievements," indicating that the village committee is trusted.

I turned a few more pages backward and found a record of an earlier democratic life meeting. Participants included not only village cadres but also the heads of the pai and jia groups within the village. I noticed the recorded speech of a group head named Guo Jin: "I was frequently transferred and borrowed by the township this year, rarely participating in village work, let alone playing a leading role or helping the masses. I hope everyone will offer me valuable opinions and criticism." Following this was a speech by a women's committee member named Huo Shouying: "As a female cadre and also a contact object of Director Du of the Social Investigation Department, I too rarely participated in village work. I only thought it sufficient to handle the central tasks directly assigned by superiors—especially Director Du—and rarely concerned myself with matters in my own village. I must work harder in the future." The straightforward words of these two grassroots cadres objectively reflected the current situation in which rural cadres in some places are stretched across too many concurrent duties.

Seeing that there was a women's committee member in the village, I felt somewhat surprised. I had visited many villages, and apart from some in the old liberated area of Lingao, which had such positions, most villages did not. Tankou is neither a model village nor an old-area village—so how did it come to have one?

I asked Old Huo and learned that this village was one where Du Wen, Director of the Social Investigation Department, had personally stayed to work. Consequently, conditions related to foot-binding, beating and cursing of women, and female illiteracy were better here than in surrounding villages. Foot-binding in particular, after several campaigns of "concentrating forces for a war of annihilation" by the Social Investigation Department, had been completely eradicated.

It seems our women's work still encompasses many tasks urgently needed to eliminate harmful customs. Pursuing "three harmonies and one less" won't suffice; in certain key backward areas, we must cook more "half-cooked rice" and fully utilize the weapons of law and dictatorship.

I proposed to meet this women's committee member, and Old Huo quickly summoned her. It turned out Huo Shouying was a distant niece of Old Huo's clan. From her appearance, she was just over twenty—yet already a widow. The evil Kong Youde mutiny had killed her family members, and now she had no relatives nearby.

Yet from her face, one couldn't detect any despondent emotions. She was evidently full of enthusiasm for life and work here. I noticed she had cut her hair short—worth noting, since although rural women here mostly no longer styled elaborate buns, very few cut their hair short.

"This way, the time for washing and combing hair is much reduced," Huo Shouying explained. "The extra time is perfect for studying and working."

Through our conversation, I learned she was a women's cadre personally selected and mentored by Du Wen, a student of the Ma'niao Peasant Movement Institute, and had recently attended a three-month "Special Training Class for Women Cadres." Speaking with her, I found that she not only spoke the new language well but also possessed a strong grasp of the Senate's policies. She discussed village work logically and clearly, with an added touch of feminine attention to detail.

When the topic turned to women's work in the village, Huo Shouying said that after Chief Du had brought people to "rectify" matters several times, the practice of wife-beating had somewhat abated. But most villagers neither understood nor approved of this work. Most people considered it busybodyism—"a dog catching mice"—and many women shared this view.

"...Some women are frequently beaten and cursed by their husbands themselves, yet make cynical remarks about our work." Huo Shouying's expression turned helpless as she recounted this. "Some even joke about me, saying I'm leaping around happily now, but just wait until I have a husband's family—then I'll likewise be pressed onto the kang by a man and whipped on the bare bottom..."

Though she spoke in a joking tone, it was clear that great waves surged in this women's cadre's heart. Changing customs and habits in rural areas, it seems, is no simple matter.

Subsequently, we discussed other issues—including many livelihood concerns repeatedly raised across various villages I had visited: bride prices, extramarital affairs, bachelors tearing down outhouses in frustration... She also mentioned women's childbirth issues, a topic male cadres rarely addressed.

"Now that everyone's life is stable, with food and clothing secured, many women are giving birth. Even women nearing menopause are getting pregnant. The town came to the village several times to promote 'giving birth at the hospital' and 'midwives must hold a midwifery license,' but there are only three licensed midwives in our township—nowhere near enough. Besides, traveling to the county seat isn't easy. Most women still hire 'waist-holding old women'—traditional birth attendants—for home deliveries. Childbirth is dangerous for women. In recent years, several women in this village have died in childbirth, and some cases were 'two lives lost in one corpse.'"

At this point, the women's cadre's eyes reddened. I felt deeply that in the field of healthcare, we still have a great deal of work to do.

Through our conversation, I came to appreciate that this women's cadre's work attitude was extremely serious, with a spirit of drilling down into problems and seeing them through to the end.

At my request, the accountant then produced the village's land and household registration files. Not only were there detailed land registrations, but also sketch maps. The cultivated land blocks throughout the village were very neat—typical works of our surveyors. The accountant said, "These cultivated lands were measured by the 'Chief's apprentices.' The area of each mu is exactly the same. There's no longer any distinction between large mu and small mu."

Because the area of a mu is now standardized, land distribution had to account for differences in quality. The general principle at the time was "determine quantity by yield"—roughly meaning those who received good land got less, and those who received poor land got more. The idea was that this would roughly equalize the total income of each household.

But the accountant said this had proven problematic in practice. Farmers allocated poor land had to invest more labor to produce anything, which instead aggravated their burden.

"Without large livestock, farming twenty mu of good land is already strenuous—let alone some families allocated poor land who have to farm thirty or forty mu!" the accountant said. "Many people, to save trouble, just plant sweet potatoes and miscellaneous grains that don't require much care. Because of this land quality issue, quite a few people in the village have strong opinions. If we followed our hometown customs—where good land, poor land, paddy field, and dry land each had different mu sizes—it would actually be fairer."

I have heard village cadres and villagers reflect on this situation more than once. It seems there are still too many "decisions made by slapping the head" in our work, with insufficient estimation of the complexity of actual conditions being faced.

Beyond land distribution issues, farmers' personal enthusiasm hasn't been fully mobilized. Many immigrants are unfamiliar with rice cultivation, and the Heaven and Earth Society doesn't organize the production of wheat, millet, and sorghum that they know—nor does it provide corresponding seeds and technical guidance. Many farming households have adopted extensive cultivation methods, resulting in very low yields.

The accountant said that at first, immigrants had strange words to say: they'd farmed their whole lives, and now they needed "Southern Barbarians" to teach them how to farm? These days there's less of that talk, but villagers still very much want to plant wheat.

These vivid situations remind me that immigrant education is not something achievable overnight. Rural work must start from reality and provide classified guidance—not "one size fits all." Especially the point about the actual area of each mu not being uniform: I realize that numerical concepts in rural areas have great elasticity and can even be established by convention among villagers. This doesn't conform to standardization, but it does possess certain rationality in rural contexts. How to balance this rationality while persisting in standardization seems to be a topic testing our governing capacity.

Because the household registration files hadn't been reviewed by anyone in half a year, many pages were stuck together. Flipping through them, I couldn't trace the flow of rural population. Aside from births and deaths, there had been no changes since the village was established. But upon specific inquiry, more than a dozen farmers had been recruited to work in Lingao and Qiongshan and no longer resided in the village. Because they hadn't transferred their household registrations, the files failed to reflect this in a timely and accurate manner.

Next, I visited several households in the village. The first was the village accountant. His family numbers five people, including three daughters. The eldest and second were brought over by his wife when she remarried; only the youngest was born locally. Such blended families are very common in the various immigrant villages.

His family was distributed thirty mu of land, including both paddies and dry fields. Annual sweet potato yield exceeds 500 jin per mu; annual rice yield is approximately 300 jin per mu. Combined with the subsidy for serving as accountant, they are considered well-off in the village. Consequently, the family possesses more daily industrial products, and the proportion of fine grain in their diet is higher.

Coming out of the accountant's house, I randomly visited three more farming households along the way. One was a middle-aged couple with two sons. The eldest is twenty; after injuring his shoulder while working at Jiazi Coal Mine years ago, he was retired due to illness and returned home. Now farming at home, his income is greatly reduced because he cannot do heavy work—and without money, he can't find a wife. The younger son was initially at home, then recruited to Sanya last year, but he didn't accumulate any savings either—returning empty-handed to the village before the Spring Festival. The old couple's greatest hope is for both sons to find wives—but due to the bride-price problem, prospects are slim.

The condition of this family is a small microcosm of rural areas. I have investigated some farming households before; most unmarried young people who go out to work provide almost no financial assistance to their parents. It's considered fortunate if they can start a family and establish themselves. It goes without saying that the "calculations" regarding farmers' income need to be revisited. We must not be blindly optimistic and must take measures for multi-channel, comprehensive income growth.

(End of Chapter)