Chapter 28: Old Habits

Yun Suji did the math. Not counting the child, it was 400 jin per person. For elderly people who didn’t participate in labor, this figure wasn’t low, but a child’s appetite grows with age. Besides, this only covered their basic food rations; daily life had other expenses. He did another calculation. According to Fan Shier’s report, the village’s grain yield per standard mu was about 300 jin for two seasons. For 30 standard mu, that would be 9,000 jin. 800 jin was less than a tenth of the harvest. Even after accounting for seeds, fertilizer, public grain tax, and labor duty, it was a very profitable arrangement for the sharecropper. Moreover, the sharecropper was effectively using two households’ tax quotas, occupying more land but paying taxes at the basic rate, avoiding the progressive tax. The calculation was truly shrewd!

He visited a few more “compensated” households. Except for the old woman from the Cao family, whose son had died and who was said to be “visiting relatives” and not at home, the stories from each household were more or less the same. Yun Suji saw that they all looked to be in decent health, with no signs of freezing or starving. He was relatively satisfied with the village administration: whatever tricks Village Chief Fan was pulling behind the scenes, he had at least done the bare minimum of his job.

Yun Suji then randomly entered a few more farmhouses along the road to see their condition. Generally speaking, every household seemed to be getting by. The sanitation was also well-managed. Fan Shier said that this standard village had been built with unified public toilets and manure dumping stations, which not only made it easier to maintain hygiene but was also beneficial for accumulating fertilizer.

Each household also had a mostly complete set of basic production tools, most of which were the improved farm tools promoted by the Heaven and Earth Society. Fan Shier said that everyone generally found the new tools to be light and easy to use, but they were “a bite to the hand” to buy. As the first batch of distributed tools gradually began to wear out, purchasing new ones was already on the agenda.

He saw almost no large, animal-powered farm machinery, and none of the few houses he entered had any livestock tied up. It was clear that their production scale was very small.

“What do families without oxen do during the spring plowing?”

“The old way,” Fan Shier said. “Those with money rent oxen, those without exchange labor.”

Yun Suji asked again, “The Heaven and Earth Society offers loans for draft animals. Has anyone taken one?”

“Few. Everyone says, ‘Now that we don’t have to worry about food and clothing, life is stable. We have our own land, so we daren’t be reckless.’”

It’s all the same tune, Yun Suji thought.

Looking at the living standards of each household, some families were clearly better off than the average. Not only did they have more tables, chairs, and furniture, but they had also acquired daily industrial goods like thermoses. Their bedding wasn’t just a simple straw mat and a thin blanket; they had bedsheets and pillows filled with kapok or bean husks—quite elaborate. Many homes were also equipped with mosquito nets.

He asked about the village’s grain consumption. Han Daoguo said that each person consumed about 330 jin of grain per year. Because there were many labor levies, and the construction sites provided food, the grain consumption was relatively low.

Yun Suji learned that the main staple here was still multigrain pancakes. The proportion of fine grains consumed was very low, less than thirty or forty jin. The reason was that they could use various miscellaneous grains, melons, and vegetables, and also that many people were not used to eating coarse rice. The harvested coarse rice, after paying the public grain tax, was mostly sold at the market in exchange for daily necessities and production materials, as the farmers lacked cash.

The Shandong immigrants here had originally had the side business of growing cotton, spinning yarn, and weaving homespun cloth. Since they didn’t plant cotton in this new place, this side business naturally disappeared. Because ready-made clothes were cheap locally, farm households were now commonly wearing them, further increasing their cash expenditures.

“Buying farm tools, buying clothes, buying salt, getting livestock… it all costs money. Everyone feels they don’t have enough money.”

“Who do you sell the grain to?”

Fan Shier said it was basically all sold to Delong. Besides Delong’s fair trade practices in purchasing grain without cheating on the scales, the fact that their purchasing points were spread across various markets was also a major factor.

“Besides farming, are there other sources of income? Any side businesses?”

“Some families have people who go out to work and bring back wages to supplement the household income,” Fan Shier said. “As for the land, there are vegetables all year round, fish and shrimp in the river, and firewood and wild fruits in the forest… but we’re far from the county town and market towns, so it’s not worth it to go sell—the transport costs as much as the goods. The Heaven and Earth Society encourages everyone to raise chickens, but the eggs have to be sold to buy salt. You can’t spend half a day going to the market for just a few eggs and a handful of vegetables.”

“Are there no small peddlers who come to the village?”

“There are, but their prices are too high!” Fan Shier said. “And he doesn’t buy anything, he only wants cash. Where would farmers get so much cash?”

Yun Suji smiled at this. “You people really don’t use your heads. Of course it’s not feasible for everyone to fend for themselves, but can’t you find someone who can write and do sums, someone everyone trusts, to go to the market for all of you?”

Yun Suji had read Peasant Life in China and knew that in the rural areas of Jiangnan, there was a specific class of peasants who engaged in “boat transport,” which was to go “to town” on behalf of the villagers to sell agricultural products and buy back daily necessities.

Fan Shier said, “Chief, how much can one person carry on a shoulder pole or push in a cart? If too many people go, it’s not worth it…”

Yun Suji’s face flushed. He had really been making assumptions! In the water-rich region of Jiangnan, one person could transport hundreds or even thousands of jin of goods by boat, but the shipping conditions here were not as good. He thought for a moment and said, “Then why not use an ox-cart? How many large animals do you have here?”

“Not many families have large animals, and whether they’d be willing is another matter,” Fan Shier said, a little uncertain.

“As long as there’s money to be made, how could they not be willing? It just depends on whether the village takes the lead,” Yun Suji said. “I can see that you are a very capable cadre.”

Fan Shier nodded quickly. “Alright! I’ll think about how to do it when I get back.”

Yun Suji said, “Speaking of side businesses, why isn’t making and selling tofu allowed?”

Fan Shier was taken aback. He thought to himself, That old scoundrel Meng, who knows what nonsense he’s been spouting to the Chief! He quickly said, “Making tofu was never forbidden. But the county has regulations that tofu workshops must comply with certain hygiene standards. I don’t understand them, so it’s best not to do it at all, to avoid making mistakes and having to answer to the township and county. Recently, they’ve been cracking down on hygiene and epidemic prevention, and the county’s health police come to the village to inspect every few days. We can’t afford to have any slip-ups.”

“So that’s how it is,” Yun Suji said. “That’s the easy way out for you. While I can’t say it’s wrong, it’s not a good method. There are hundreds of people in this village, and everyone grows miscellaneous grains, so there’s no shortage of beans. Grinding them into soy milk and making tofu gives everyone something to eat, and you get the bean dregs for feed and fertilizer. What’s not to like?”

“Yes, yes, the Chief’s instruction is right. I’ll have Old Meng get the tofu workshop running again when I get back,” Fan Shier said.

Just as Yun Suji was about to say more, a woman’s sharp cry suddenly rang out: “Stop hitting me! I won’t do it again! I won’t! Oww… Father… spare me…”

Yun Suji frowned and asked, “What’s going on?”

“It’s just Liang Zhu disciplining his wife,” Fan Shier said nonchalantly. “He has a bad temper, and his wife has a sharp tongue…”

An image of the young woman sitting at the village entrance making shoes flashed through Yun Suji’s mind. He shook his head.

Seeing Yun Suji’s frown, Fan Shier quickly added, “I’ll send Yuanhu over right away…”

“No need.” Yun Suji thought to himself that he wasn’t here to be a neighborhood mediator; it was best not to get involved in such domestic matters. He asked, “Is wife-beating common in your village?”

Seeing his displeased expression, Fan Shier knew that among the Australians, women had a high status and beating one’s wife was not acceptable. He couldn’t help but curse Liang Zhu inwardly for having nothing better to do than beat his wife and cause trouble for him.

He put on a smiling face. “It’s an old habit that’s hard to change, it’s inevitable! Our customs there are not good. You might laugh, Chief, but the older generation had a saying: a wife you marry home is like a donkey you buy, I can ride her and beat her as I please. If you don’t beat your wife for ten days or half a month, all the neighbors will laugh at you for having no balls. Even those who truly dote on their wives have to close the door, take a broom and hit the edge of the bed, and have their wives wail a few times… Don’t mind her loud wailing, a few swats on the backside with a broom won’t cause any real harm.”

Yun Suji said nothing, knowing full well the difficulty of changing customs. But he was very clear that the status of women was ultimately an economic issue. How to attract women to participate more in social labor and in the distribution of the fruits of that labor seemed to be an important social problem. He remembered Zhao Yingong mentioning in a report that in some parts of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, women’s family status was higher because of their role in sericulture. In the late Qing Dynasty, a large number of female silk reeling workers appeared in Guangdong. They could earn money to support their families, and their family status rose significantly.

He thought, We talk about industrialization, but in reality, the scale of our industry is still too small. The prosperity and civilization of Lingao are like a lonely island in a vast ocean, just like Kabul in the 1970s and 80s, merely a thin veil of modern civilization. In the broader expanse of Hainan Island, traditional production models and social order still persist.

Speaking of which, the fact that we couldn’t settle the immigrants on state-owned farms and had to create many self-sufficient farming villages with land distributed to households, isn’t that just a compromise between our ideals and our meager productivity?

Yun Suji strolled along the street. He felt that a portion of the peasants had an urgent desire to move upward, to expand production. But no one was showing them the way, there wasn’t enough support, and some policies were even hindering them. As for the majority of the peasants, they hadn’t changed much, still possessing the habits of small producers. Because these standard villages, apart from being neater and having better sanitation, were essentially no different from the old homes they had fled.

They were still content with the status quo, believing that fate was about stability and having enough to eat. After experiencing so many storms and life-and-death situations, their thinking was even tinged with a sense of nihilistic weariness, a feeling that enjoying the present was enough.

Yun Suji considered this and asked, “Where is Bai Puting’s house?”

Fan Shier was startled. “You’re going to his house?”

“Yes, I want to go and see.”

Bai Puting was in his courtyard cutting grass when he suddenly saw Han Daoguo rush in frantically, shouting, “Old Bai! The Chief is coming to your house! Get ready, quickly!”