A blog about Asia through the eyes of the people changing it

NAME: Gao Qingrong
AGE: 37
OCCUPATION: Farmer
POTENTIALLY A CANDIDATE FOR: The Nobel Peace Prize, as part of a group of 1000 grassroots activist women from around the world.

In the not-so-distant past, rural life was glorified in China. Just as it was a peasant revolution that established modern China, the simplicity and honesty of the peasants established the moral standard of the nation. During the Cultural Revolution, urban Chinese were even shipped out to the countryside to learn from the peasantry.

But since then the fickle narrative of Chinese history has changed direction. The Chinese idiom ‘zhao ling xi gai’ can describe modern China’s policies towards the countryside: to issue an edict at dawn that is rescinded at dusk.

Since the mid-80s, Chinese policy and society has embraced an unequivocally urbanized vision of the future. The consequences of this have not merely been disproportionate investment and reform in urban areas and a resulting economic disparity between city and countryside (at a record high today). It has also subjugated the idea of the countryside. The idea of a modernized future is one liberated from the backwardness of the village or peasant.

Accompanying this attitude is a perpetual national conversation about the “quality” (suzhi) of a person. While the image of the cosmopolitan, trendy urbanite often signifies someone of “high” quality; the image of the old-fashioned farmer almost always means “low” quality. It is common to hear rural Chinese use this expression as a means of self-deprecation.

These new attitudes have turned an old Maoist practice on its head. Policy makers, academics and officials now promote rural migration to the cities not only for bringing capital into the countryside, but also for “civilizing” the village. The idea is that the farmer can learn from urbanites while in the city and then return to the countryside with improved quality.

But all of this has created a vicious circle. National discourse and policy scorning the countryside have created a developmental model where the vast majority of economic opportunities are located in cities. It has also created a national culture that equates the urban with civilization. As a result, most rural Chinese have a deep desire to leave their hometowns— both for the economic opportunities and the chance to become culturally adequate.

#10 Village of Luoxi Township— the place where I do field research—is a typical example the consequences. Most people of working-age have left for the cities, and the village has become a ghost town with virtually only young children and elderly remaining. (The only place that is always filled with activity is the government-sponsored training center for helping people acquire skills to work in factories in the cities). Furthermore, problems with sanitation and waste have become serious because many of those who remain—either harboring plans to leave as soon as possible or just disdaining the countryside—neglect to care for their community. This bleak reality not only creates a countryside that reinforces people’s desire to leave but also the very prejudices that helped create it.

But there are rural Chinese like the Gao family fighting to change this.

The Gaos operate a direct marketing model, organic farm in Anlong Village, Sichuan. Working in a co-op with seven other families, they run a project they have come to call Healthful Vegetable Delivery. It involves selling produce directly to consumers while incorporating only sustainable and organic farming techniques. Once a week the Gao’s eldest son, Gao Yicheng, delivers produce from the co-op to multiple drop off points in Chengdu, 30 kilometers away.

The co-op uses the term “urban-rural mutual aid” to describe their operation. In this spirit, the Gaos intimately engage with customers in Chengdu and frequently invite them over to learn about farm work or eat with the family. The model has proved successful— unlike the vast majority of rural Chinese, the Gaos are able to support themselves solely through family farming and do not rely on urban migration to survive.

My friend Matthew Hale describes the context of the Gao’s work in a recent edition of Chengdoo Citylife Magazine:

“These efforts, through small-scale and voluntary cooperation among rural households in collaboration with urbanites, to clean up the environment, combat deleterious effects of China’s development, and reconstruct the urban-rural relationship, are hallmarks of China’s alternative rural development movement…This NGO-based movement emerged around 2002 through the convergence of several dozen left-leaning academics and grassroots activists concerned with the dissolution of china’s rural communities since the 1990s.”

In many ways—especially in their warmth and hospitality— the Gaos closely resemble many of the rural Sichuanese I have encountered elsewhere. But there is also something obviously different about them and their community.

Anlong village radiates the vitality that #10 Village lost long ago. Potted plants, orchards and drying produce envelop every corner of the colorful courtyard that leads up to their home. Animals are conspicuously absent from both their two-acres of pristine farmland and dinner table, as the family are practicing Buddhists and vegetarians. Scattered around the property are the different experiments they (often in coordination with environmental NGOs) have conducted for making their home a greener place. They have developed manmade wetland water filtration system, installed an “ecological urine-diverting dry toilet,” make compost, and use rice husks instead of soap to clean dishes.

While most of the Gaos are active in promoting their work, I spent the majority of my time at their farm talking to Gao Qingrong, the 32 year-old eldest daughter. Her job was previously the same as most other rural Chinese—working as a migrant laborer in a coastal city. However, when she came home for Spring Festival in 2007 she saw how difficult it was for her mother to tend the farm on her own and decided to stay.

Her timing fortuitously coincided with a Chengdu-based environmental NGO giving a workshop in Anlong Village about sustainable farming practices. Since then, she has devoted herself to promoting and developing sustainable, community-oriented farming practices.

Gao strongly believes that prevailing attitudes concerning the countryside hurt villages. “Our media and culture dupe us into believing we don’t want to farm,” she told me. “But we can think for ourselves and set our own path—I don’t need to migrate.”

She also remains positive for the future. There are plenty of possibilities for sustainable farming to continue expanding in China, she told me. “People will come to learn about the environmental and health dangers of conventional farming,” she said. “Once people know about them and they’ll make a change.”

The Gao’s co-op is part of a profoundly different countryside from what I have seen in #10 Village and elsewhere. Through “urban-rural mutual aid,” they have found a way to circumnavigate the social and economic disincentives of family farming.

The model that Gaos operate is not a solution to all of China’s rural problems. However, its strategy has been effective in locally contesting national attitudes towards the countryside—all while turning an enclave of Anlong village into a much brighter place to live.

Before I left the farm, Qingrong asked me what I planned to do after I was finished getting my education. I told her that I wasn’t sure, and playfully asked her what she thought I should do. Her response beamed genuineness: “I haven’t been able to do much studying but I do know that whatever we do, it should be to make the world a better place.” “You’ll figure something out,” she said

Thanks to Matthew A. Hale (Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at the University of Washington) for introducing me to the Gaos, informing me of much of what I know about alternative rural development in China and providing me with the Gao Shengjian quote at the beginning of this post.