Roots vs. Rot in the Chinese Countryside
In spite of the amazing changes in China since 1989 when this was written, I am sure it is still as true in some remote countryside areas in China today as it was 20 years ago. We see and hear a great deal about the prosperity of China now, but the gaps between the well-off and the desperately poor are extreme.
It was a rare privilege for me to visit two families deep in the Chinese countryside. I was the guest of two friends, college students I had met in the city where I taught. In both their small villages, I was the first foreigner the villagers had ever seen. I came to understand the sense of roots that some of my Chinese students had received from their upbringing in the countryside, but I also came to understand why they feel they will rot if they remain in the countryside.
As I sat in front of the thatched roof cottage, I looked out upon a wide view of rice paddies in the growing stage that makes them look like a vast, green lawn. The tiny haystacks in front of the cottage and dotting the landscape were of dried wheat used to fuel the stove. The birds twittered, and there was a gentle peacefulness. It was not a wild, natural beauty, but it was beautiful. To me, it was lovely, quiet, and quaint. It was like going back in time to life before toilets and other modern conveniences. It gave me the feeling I have when I’m camping — a good feeling of being close to nature.
However, the peasants don’t romanticize it. The thatched roof cottage and barn are quite dirty and undecorated by modern standards. The “simple” life is not so simple for the people who must draw water from a well, boil all water before drinking, and gather the fuel that must be continually fed into the stove when cooking. There are the animals to care for, the rice to plant and harvest, the rape to gather and thresh, the mulberry leaves to be cut for the hungry silkworms, the garden of vegetables to be cared for, the washing, and the babies to be tended.
Men and women share most of the chores — each one doing whatever needs to be done at that time. In the families I visited, the fathers and sons in the family cooked, while the mothers constantly fed fuel through holes in back of the stove under permanent woks (deep, rounded frying pans) set into the stove. One wok was for steaming rice, and the other was used to prepare each dish individually. Since the cooking temperature can’t be regulated, and the pot can’t be removed from the stove, the cook must be constantly alert. The stove is an important part of the peasants’ home, and has interesting symbolic hand painted decorations on it. The peasants must respect the stove because food is precious in a country that does not have enough to adequately feed its population.
In one home, the 70-year-old grandmother looked at me with some curiosity as I sat eating at their table. She had arisen at dawn, and had worked in the home and in the fields all day as she had done all her life. Although her life is physically hard, she rises each morning with a sense of purpose and responsibility that many of her western counterparts might envy. She said something to me which my friend translated as, “It’s very backward here.”
I heard this reference to being “backward” several times while I was in the countryside. While they have little education and no refrigeration, there is limited electricity that brings radio and television into their homes. Television has shown them that their life is not modern. They do backbreaking work for hours and days that machines could do better in minutes. They freeze in their unheated homes in winter, and sweat in summer. They have no phones, and transportation is very bad. Even when transportation is available in a three-wheeled tractor vehicle, one must travel over unbelievably bumpy, rutted roads that tax both machine and body.
Brothers, sisters, neighbors came to stare fixedly at me. They watched how I sat, how I ate, what I wore, how I spoke. They seemed amazed at my ability to use chopsticks. Sometimes I was requested to show my ability to successfully pick up a cooked peanut with my chopsticks. I often felt I was a Martian who had landed on earth. But, they stared in curiosity, not animosity. When I looked them straight in the eye and smiled at them, they replied by smiling broadly. They treated me as a fragile, honored guest and tried to anticipate my every need and possible want. They prepared feasts of food in my honor. One of the fathers proudly showed me the eel — the largest one he could find –to prepare for my enjoyment. I was sorry when his son told him that Americans don’t like eating eels.
They brought me hot water to wash my hands and face when they finally gave up encouraging me to eat more. Being so large and heavy compared to Chinese, they were amazed at how little I ate. Coming from an overfed western culture in which we must worry about the dangers of overeating, I took pleasure in seeing their total appreciation of food, especially the fat on meat. They insisted I keep sitting down and even followed after me with a little stool, and were horrified if I tried to do anything for myself. Helping out was definitely not allowed.
My two friends had been rather nervous and embarrassed about exposing me to such a “primitive” life. One neighbor asked how I could possibly be comfortable on their hard beds. Although timid about asking me questions, one group of neighbors asked me to show them American dollars and my passport. In the dim electric light, they peered unbelievingly at these treasures - unthinkable possessions to a Chinese peasant.
One of the families I visited was a wealthier peasant family. The father, who also worked in construction, was building a two-story home which is considered a sign of prosperity. He proudly showed me the western style toilet, which his son had requested he finish installing quickly in time for my visit. The mother and I liked one another instantly. We intuitively knew that, although from such different lives, we could have talked endlessly if we had had a common language. However, lacking common words, we had to make do with laughing, hugging, and eye communication. I have never felt so warmly welcomed anywhere, nor my presence so appreciated. We brought each other honor. I felt honored to be there; she felt honored to host the only forienger who had ever come to their village.
Both families gratefully appreciated my interest in their sons. Sons are the most precious possession of a Chinese family — and these sons had accomplished what few if any others in their villages had done — they were about to become college graduates. Unlike western culture, there are no hugs and kisses and words of endearment exchanged between grown children and their parents. But the closeness and love within the family comes through clearly and is, to me, the true beauty of China. What I could appreciate perhaps even more than they can is the warmth of extended family living that modern western living has largely erased.
I left not only with the gifts they gave me, but also a fuller understanding. I could see how deep the roots are in the soil and hardship of the Chinese countryside, and the security that comes with a strong sense of place. But the students who have come from the countryside also feel they will rot if they remain in the village. And, in many ways, that is true. The rewards of the Chinese peasant are few.
To me, it was a short-term adventure, a sharing of the home lives and families of two of the students I had come to know and love during my time in China. But, to them, home is the place they love, and also wish to leave so that they can realize the dreams that intelligent young people have in their early 20s about their future. And the parents, mainly isolated, illiterate, and having suffered through China’s traumatic recent history, also dream for their children as best they can. They do not wish to lose their children, but neither do they want them to remain in the village.
I helped the boys to appreciate some of the beauty of their countryside through my eyes - the peace, the quiet, the serenity. One of the boys had never noticed in the thousands of times he had drawn water from the well what a beautiful abstract kinetic art piece existed in his well. The boys helped me to appreciate their environment, their roots, and their conflict in mentally knowing the modern world through their exposure to it in their college studies, while stuck in the “backward” world of the village. I saw why they love the countryside, and why they want and need to leave it.
Tags: rural China; modern Chinese history; Chinese peasants;, Travel
