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Living it up in the Chinese countryside By
Leon D'souza
When Mahatma Gandhi returned to India in 1915 after having spent several years championing the cause of indentured Indians in South Africa, he refused to plunge headfirst into the freedom movement, which at the time was steadily gaining momentum. Instead, he chose to travel. The cities belied his vision of the motherland he had left behind. So he ventured out into the Indian countryside. There, in the lap of nature, and in the midst of peasants, Gandhi rediscovered the India he knew and loved. He once observed that "the real India lives in villages." Like Gandhi's India, the real China lives in villages, and no account of modern China would ever be complete without a description of life away from the din and bustle that is so much a part of everyday life in Chinese cities. Open Country The Chinese countryside is a vast expanse of green fields and mighty mountains interspersed with small hamlets of little red brick houses that millions of Chinese peasants call home. Two-thirds of the territory is mountainous or desert, and only one-tenth is cultivated. I have spent the last two weeks in a village on the outskirts of a little town called Xiaoshao, forty minutes south-east of Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province in South-West China. This is a small town with a population of about two or three thousand. Xiaoshao will be my home for the next four months. I am here to teach English to little children at the nearby Guanghua School. The Xiaoshao area is a lot like the rest of mainland China - mountainous and green. Perched atop the hills that girdle the "City of Eternal Spring," as Kunming is often referred to, the town is caressed by warm and gentle mountain winds all year round. The climate and topography are perfect for the avid outdoorsman. Agriculture and Commerce Xiaoshao is a community of farmers and traders. Agriculture is the mainstay of the local economy. The main crops are rice and wheat. Farming in the Chinese countryside is an arduous endeavor. Terraces have been carved into hills to facilitate cultivation. The use of modern technology in agriculture is very limited and almost all cultivation is done manually. Farmers sell most of their produce in neighboring Kunming, and at the local market near the town center. The market is an exciting place to visit. In addition to some absurd food items that are visually engaging, the constant chatter of buyers and sellers negotiating prices is always entertaining, particularly when the buyers are foreigners who do not speak Mandarin. In the short time that I have spent here, the market has fast become my favorite hangout. Traders are slightly less aggressive than their counterparts in big cities. I have not been accosted, thus far, by the enthusiastic armies of little kids ever ready to sell foreigners their 10-Yuan roses. General stores are more responsive to changes in the consumer market. Two such stores outside the gates of the Kunming Guanghua School, where 19 American English teachers (including myself) reside, have increased their stocks of American bare-necessities - Pepsi, Coke, and Oreo cookies - and of course, prices are headed north much to the chagrin of our little community. Cell Phones and Digital Subscriber Lines It almost feels strange to be writing about modern technology in an article on life in rural China. China is, after all, a developing country, and access to technology is supposed to be an issue here, at least in the villages and towns away from the big cities. However, technology seems so omnipresent in China. I was taken completely by surprise when a few days ago, on one of my morning jaunts, I spotted a woman from a minority tribe clad in traditional attire, shopping basket strapped to her back, with a cell phone in her hand. The cell phone seemed so out-of-place, but it was there, and it made a statement about the Chinese commitment to ending what some have called the emerging information apartheid. Whether mainstream or minority, rich or middle-class, technology must be made accessible to all, and modern China is leading the way in breaking down the barriers to information access in the developing world. Soon, computers at the Kunming Guanghua School will cruise the Internet on high-speed Digital Subscriber Lines - China Telecom's latest offering. These facilities are still expensive, but the fact that they exist even in the villages of rural China is itself heartening. A New China Technological revolutions in developing countries have usually been confined to urban areas. Rural communities in much of the developing world have remained backward in many respects. This is perhaps why many so-called "Third World" countries, such as my home country, India, have remained at the trailing edge of the silicon revolution sweeping the world since the early 1980s. Modern China, cognizant of this fact, is harnessing frontier science and technology and employing a holistic approach to build a new China - a land of opportunity for both rural and urban Chinese alike. Brimming with enthusiasm, hard-working, skilled and determined, the Chinese are endeavoring to revolutionize everyday life in 21st century China. The divorce between rural and urban development, which has long been the bane of progress in modern China, is slowly vanishing.
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