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March 8, 2015

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Tracking change in rural China

“IN winter the land is frozen and still. A cloudless sky shines off snow-covered rice paddies, reflecting light so bright, you have to shield your eyes. The view is flat, lifeless, and silver fresh.”

Michael Meyer is walking along a two-lane cement road called Hongqi Lu, or Red Flag Road. His beard is beaded with ice. However, the destination is not his hometown in Minnesota but Dahuangdi, or Wasteland, a small village in Gudianzi Town of Changchun, the provincial capital of Jilin.

With absorbing details, Meyer’s new book “In Manchuria: A Village Called Wasteland and the Transformation of Rural China” tells of the drastic changes of a village over the past 15 years as he traces the history of the land from the 19th century.

Dahuangdi is the home village of Meyer’s wife. It is only 25 kilometers from the city with a population of 3,900 people, or 920 families. Like most rural villages in northeast China, village life is mostly quiet and calm, especially during winter when the soil is frozen and there’s no farming work to be done.

However, Meyer checks the trash aside Hongqi Lu and finds the hidden hustle and bustle of the village — empty boxes of expensive Panda cigarettes and bottles of Moutai liquor; broadsheets of stock tips, real estate flyers, and fortune-telling booklets advising the most auspicious days to buy property; and tabloids bearing titles such as “Intriguing Stories and Strange Affairs.”

Unlike the English name Wasteland implies, Dahuangdi is a major rice production base and famous for high-quality northeastern rice. It has been regarded as a model new socialist commune since 2000. The village even has its own well-maintained “top-level” domain name: www.dahuangdicun.com, where you can find all the media coverage of it in the past few years.

According to Chinese media reports, changes to the village began in 2000 when two brothers, Liu Yandong and Liu Yanfeng, founded Eastern Fortune Rice, a small rice processing plant. Two years later as business grew the brothers rented state-owned farmland and began growing their own rice. They started to cultivate organic rice on a large scale in 2004. Former President Hu Jintao visited the village and the headquarters of today’s Eastern Fortune Group in 2007.

Since then changes to the village have accelerated. In 2011, Eastern Fortune contracted most of the 1,300 hectares of farmland in the village. In return, farmers who gave up their land were promised 15,550 yuan (US$2,485) per hectare every year. Thirty-one apartment buildings were built and many families abandoned their land to live in an apartment. The urbanization of the village is in tune with the process around the country.

Meyer rented a house in Dahuangdi and volunteered at the local No. 22 Middle School as an English teacher. He listened to stories of farmers, cadres, teachers, bankers, entrepreneurs, veteran soldiers and migrant workers — a cross-section of society.

According to Meyer, not everybody is satisfied with urbanization. Some think giving up their homes means more than losing a garden or chicken coop, which allows for self-sufficiency and a secondary income. Others think living away from the land is bad for their health as traditional beliefs hold that life emanates from “being in contact with the earth’s energy.” The elderly also find climbing stairs to a fifth-story apartment tiring. Lastly, they doubt if Eastern Fortune’s payments are fair, because what seems fair today may be unfair tomorrow.

For Meyer, the village is a microcosm of changes occurring around China. He digs further to see the events in Dahuangdi from a broader perspective.

Meyer says northeast China has an incredible history over the past 500 years. From the rise of Manchu, the building and fall of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), the fight between Russia and Japan, the last Emperor Puyi, China’s civil war, the railway and industrialization, etc. All of it has shaped northeastern China and its people.

Meyer answers a few questions.

Once a commune, Dahuangdi is now a company town. Is it good or bad?

Some would say it’s a natural progression, though it might not feel that way to the farmers, who have experienced the full range of land reform since 1949, from redistribution to communes to family farming plots. On the other hand, the change frees the younger generations to pursue schooling and careers outside the village.

What’s your opinion about the urbanization of rural China?

Over the past 20 years I’ve seen the massive transformation of the countryside manifest itself in improved infrastructure and farming techniques. But that has not narrowed the gap between rural and urban lives in terms of income disparity, access to quality education and health care and an improved social safety net. The debate over how to fix this currently seems to revolve around changing land rights so farmers have greater control of their fields, and better access to capital.

What are the special characters of Chinese farmers?

I grew up in a rural area of the United States, and found the character of Chinese and American farmers to be similar. They’re strong, they’ll talk for hours about their work with modesty, and they’re preoccupied with the weather and pests.

What’s the opinion of farmers to the history and tradition?

I found people to be interested in my research and what I was finding.

In the book I mention how the village’s stone just said, “Dahuangdi. In 1956, it became a village.” But by the story’s end, a larger stone has been erected, detailing Qing Emperor Qianlong’s (1711-99) visit and the fact that for centuries, people had lived there.




 

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