Chapter 37: Excerpts from Notes on a Trip to the Countryside (Continued)

I was very interested in these authentic “local texts.” Seeing that there were activities of the Red and White Affairs Council, I remembered that this council was jointly promoted by the Catholic Church and the new Daoism in Lingao. I was very interested in this and asked about the work of the council.

Old Huo said that the Red and White Affairs Council had indeed done a lot, especially the “Australian ceremonies” they held in the village. Because they were solemn and not expensive, they had recently become increasingly popular with the villagers. When I asked about the specific practices, it turned out that the council used a system of believer volunteers. Catholic and new Daoist believers in the village had to do volunteer work when fellow villagers had weddings or funerals. The various ceremonial materials and props needed were provided free of charge by the council. The masters of ceremonies and the chanting for salvation were also provided free of charge by the two religions, which was highly praised by the masses.

Flipping to the record of the village committee’s most recent democratic life meeting, on June 15th of this year, the content showed that the township had randomly organized villager representatives to conduct an anonymous vote to evaluate the village chief, deputy village chief, and other three village cadres. All three received 15 “work achievement affirmation votes,” which shows that the village committee was trusted.

I flipped back a few more pages and saw a record of a village democratic life meeting, attended by the village cadres and the group leaders. I noticed a record of a group leader named Guo Jin speaking: “I have been frequently seconded and borrowed by the township this year and have rarely participated in the village’s work, let alone played a leading role or helped the masses. I hope everyone will give me valuable opinions and help.” Next was a record of a women’s committee member named Huo Shouying speaking: “As a female cadre and also the contact person for Director Du of the Social Investigation Department, I have also rarely participated in the village’s work. I only thought it was enough to do a good job of the central tasks assigned by the higher-ups, especially Director Du directly. I rarely asked about the affairs of my own village. I will definitely work hard in the future.” Needless to say, the straightforward words of these two grassroots cadres objectively reflected the situation of rural cadres being used in multiple places in some areas.

Seeing that there was a women’s committee member in the village, I was a little surprised. I have visited many villages, and except for some villages in the old districts of Lingao, most villages do not have women’s committee members. Tankou is neither a model village nor an old district village, so why would it have such a position?

I asked Old Huo and found out that this village was where Director Du Wen of the Social Investigation Department had personally stayed to gain experience. Therefore, the situation of foot-binding, beating and scolding of women, and female literacy in this village was better than in the surrounding villages. Especially foot-binding, which had been completely eradicated after several “concentrated force to fight a war of annihilation” campaigns by the Social Investigation Department.

It seems that our women’s work, including many urgent tasks to eliminate bad customs, cannot be done with a “three-and-one-less” approach. For some key backward areas, we must “cook more half-cooked rice” and make full use of the weapons of law and dictatorship.

I proposed to meet this women’s committee member, and Old Huo quickly called her over. It turned out that Huo Shouying was Old Huo’s distant niece. She looked to be in her early twenties but was already a widow—the evil Kong Youde’s rebellion had killed her relatives, and now she had no family left.

But from her face, you couldn’t see a trace of dejection. It was clear that she was full of enthusiasm for her life and work here. I noticed she had short hair—you should know that although most rural women here no longer wore overly complicated hair buns, few had short hair.

“This way, I can spend much less time washing and combing my hair,” Huo Shouying said. “The extra time is just right for studying and working.”

During our conversation, I learned that she was a women’s cadre personally selected and cultivated by Du Wen, a student of the Ma Niao Agricultural Lecture Institute, and had recently participated in a three-month “special training class for women cadres.” After talking with her, I found that she not only spoke the new dialect well but also had a strong grasp of the Senate’s policies. She spoke about the village’s work in a clear and logical way, with an added feminine touch of meticulousness.

Speaking of the women’s work in the village, Huo Shouying said that after Chief Du had led people to “rectify” the situation several times, the practice of beating wives had somewhat subsided. However, most villagers did not understand or approve of this work. Most people thought it was meddling, including many women who held the same view.

“…Some women are often beaten and scolded by their husbands, but they speak sarcastically about our work,” Huo Shouying said with a helpless expression. “Some even make jokes about me, saying I’m all excited now, but when I get married in the future, my husband will also press me down on the bed and spank me…”

Although she spoke in a joking tone, I could see that this female cadre had a great deal of turmoil in her heart. It seems that changing customs in the countryside is not a simple matter.

Afterward, we talked about other things. We talked about many livelihood issues that were repeatedly mentioned in the various villages I had visited: bride prices, adultery, bachelors peeping at latrines… She also mentioned the issue of women’s childbirth, which male cadres rarely mentioned.

“Now that life is stable and people have food and clothing, many women are having babies. Even women who are close to menopause are getting pregnant. The town has come to the village several times to promote ‘hospital delivery’ and ‘childbirth must be attended by a licensed midwife,’ but there are only three licensed midwives in our town, which is not enough to cope. Besides, it’s not easy to go to the county. Most women still give birth at home with the help of a traditional midwife. Childbirth is very dangerous for women. In recent years, several women in this village have died in childbirth, and some have resulted in the death of both mother and child.”

At this point, the female cadre’s eyes turned red. I deeply felt that in the field of health care, we still have a lot of work to do.

During our conversation, I felt that this female cadre had a very serious work attitude and a drive to get to the bottom of things.

Afterward, at my request, the accountant took out the village’s land and household registration files. Not only were there detailed land registrations, but also sketch maps. The village’s cultivated land plots were very neat, a typical work of our surveyors. The accountant said, “This cultivated land was all measured by the ‘Chief’s apprentices.’ The area of each mu is exactly the same. There is no longer a distinction between large and small mu.”

Because the area of a mu was exactly the same, they had to consider the issue of good and bad land when distributing it. The general principle at the time was “to determine the amount by output,” which roughly meant that those who got good land got less, and those who got bad land got more. The idea was that this could roughly equalize the total income of each household.

But the accountant said that this practice had caused great problems. Farmers who were allocated bad land had to put in more labor to produce, which actually increased their burden.

“Without a large animal, it’s difficult to farm 20 mu of good land, let alone some families who were allocated poor land and have to farm thirty or forty mu!” the accountant said. “Many people, for the sake of convenience, just plant sweet potatoes and miscellaneous grains that don’t require much care. Many people in the village have opinions about the quality of the land they were allocated. According to the customs of our old home, the size of a mu for good land, bad land, paddy fields, and dry land are all different, which is actually fairer.”

I have heard village cadres and villagers react to this situation more than once. It seems that there is still too much “decision-making by slapping one’s head” in our work, and we have underestimated the complexity of the actual situation.

In addition to the problem of land area, the personal enthusiasm of the farmers has not been fully mobilized. Many immigrants are not familiar with rice production, and the Heaven and Earth Society does not organize the production of wheat, millet, and sorghum that they are familiar with, nor does it provide corresponding seeds and technical guidance. Many farmers have adopted an extensive planting method, resulting in very low yields.

The accountant said that at the beginning, the immigrants had complaints: they had been farming all their lives, and now they had to be taught how to farm by a few southerners. Now there are fewer complaints, but the villagers still want to plant wheat.

These vivid situations remind me that the education of immigrants is not something that can be accomplished overnight. Rural work must proceed from reality, with classified guidance, and cannot be one-size-fits-all. In particular, the fact that the actual area of each mu is not the same makes me realize that the concept of numbers in the countryside has a greater elasticity and can even be determined by convention among the villagers. This does not conform to standardization, but it does have a certain rationality in the countryside. How to take into account both rationality and standardization seems to be a topic that tests our governing ability.

The household registration files had not been checked for half a year, and many pages were stuck together. I flipped through them back and forth but couldn’t see any population movement in the countryside. Except for births and deaths, there had been no changes since the village was established. But upon specific inquiry, I found that more than a dozen farmers had been recruited to work in Lingao and Qiongshan and no longer lived in the village. Because they had not transferred their household registration, the household registration files could not be updated accurately in a timely manner.

Next, I visited several households in the village. The first was the village accountant. His family has 5 members, 3 girls. The eldest and second daughters were brought over by his wife when she remarried. Only the youngest daughter was born locally. Such reconstituted families are very common in the various immigrant villages.

His family was allocated 30 mu of land, both paddy fields and dry land. The annual yield of sweet potatoes is more than 500 jin per mu, and the annual yield of rice is about 300 jin per mu. In addition to his subsidy as an accountant, his family is considered well-off in the village. Therefore, his family has more daily industrial goods, and the proportion of fine grains in their diet is also higher.

After leaving the accountant’s house, I randomly visited 3 more farmers along the way. One of them was a middle-aged couple with two sons. The eldest son is 20 years old. He was injured in the shoulder while working at the Jiazi Coal Mine before the New Year and retired due to illness. He is now farming at home. Because he can’t do heavy work, his income has been greatly affected, and he has no money to get married. The younger son was originally at home but was recruited to work in Sanya last year. However, he couldn’t save any money and came home empty-handed before the Spring Festival. The old couple’s biggest hope now is that their two sons can find wives—but the hope is slim due to the problem of the bride price.

The situation of this family is a small microcosm of the countryside. I have also investigated some farmers before. Most of the unmarried young people who go out to work provide almost no financial assistance to their parents. It is considered good if they can start their own families. It goes without saying that the “account” of doubling farmers’ income needs to be recalculated. We must not be blindly optimistic and must adopt a multi-channel comprehensive income-increasing measure.