High on the hog
Jiang Xuejun decided to take a day off. Certainly, this was unusual for the farmer who was busy tending to more than 200 pigs. But the 33-year-old man and his parents-in-law left his home at 10 am bound for the Yangtze River in September 2006.
Even though the trek along the bumpy mountain roads would take more than an hour, the Wanzhou native took his 8-year-old daughter with him. The father was eager to show his daughter the place he grew up, because it would be submerged forever once the rising river reached the designated 156 meters' mark during the third water storage phase of the Three Gorges Project.
Jiang Xuejun (left) and his family have moved into an 800-square-meter, three-story house in Wanzhou, Chongqing. Photos by Jiang Dong |
"Watching the water submerging the land bit by bit, I couldn't help think of the past nostalgically. Tears were welling up in the elders' eyes," he recalled.
Jiang also noticed that the river was no longer rushing. Instead, it had become a great lake, which was so calm that large boats cruising along its surface wouldn't create wake.
Located about three hours' drive from Chongqing, Wanzhou has a history spanning 1,700 years. It became a district of Chongqing when the central government carved the municipality out of Sichuan Province in 1997. It's located in the Three Gorges reservoir area and is one of the 10 famous harbors of the Yangtze River.
Because of its important location, Wanzhou faces the biggest resettlement among the Three Gorges reservoir areas.
Nearly half of the 14-square-kilometer old Wanzhou city was inundated. The migrant population in entire Wanzhou District is about 250,000 - one-fifth of the total population of the Three Gorges reservoir areas and one-fourth of that of the Chongqing reservoir areas.
Now, the rural migrant population has reached 47,000, while the number of urban migrants has surpassed 180,000.
Jiang first heard of the Three Gorges Project in 1992. At that time, the 18-year-old had no idea how his life would be changed by the project.
Five years later, his family and 130 others were informed they must leave Chaoyang Village.
"Honestly, I preferred to move to higher land in local areas rather than going to other provinces - partly because of the language barrier and partly because of the different lifestyles," he said.
In 2000, Jiang chose to settle in Dazhai Town at an altitude of more than 500 meters.
"I no longer hear the steam whistles of boats. It is strangely quiet, but I have gotten used to it," he said.
Instead of farming the fields along the desolate mountainsides, the former vet opened a piggery. He raised more than 400,000 yuan ($50,000), mostly by borrowing money from relatives and banks, to realize his dream.
In order to save money, he often joined the construction workers in building his "castle" on top of a hill.
After two years, the family moved into their new 800-square-meter, three-story house. The basement and the ground floor are for raising pigs, while the top two floors are for accommodation.
All of the interior walls remain unpainted - a testimony to how busy the new homeowner has become. However, these blank walls provide a great space for Jiang's daughter to practice her penmanship. Surely, no decoration better brightens up a room than a childishly penned inscription on the wall reading, "my parents are master hands".
Nowadays, it is common for a farmer such as Jiang to own some basic household electrical appliances. But it is uncommon to see anyone surf the Internet in such a remote area.
Jiang bought a computer last year, after he and his wife took free computing courses offered by the Wanzhou Immigration Bureau.
The computer is more popular among family members than the TV. Jiang often uses it to search for market information about pigs and pig feed, while his wife Zhang Mengyan loves to play online games in her spare time. Jiang's daily routine is as plain as the landscapes surrounding his house. As he said: "Everything I do is about raising pigs".
The couple gets up at 5:30 am every morning. Normally, they inspect the pigpen; then, they prepare feed. After taking his daughter to school on his motorcycle, Jiang, along with two other migrants, spends hours cleaning the pigpen. A vegetable plot supplies their daily needs.
Jiang never complains about his life, because he enjoys his work. However, his wife feels otherwise.
The 31-year-old woman finds life here to be too simple. She even feels lonely sometimes, because she hardly visits friends or neighbors because of the distance and intensity of their workload. "We only go shopping twice a year," Jiang revealed. He pointed to his shirt, "I have worn it for four years - every summer, same clothes."
Jiang said his primary concerns are paying back bank loans and expanding the piggery. The young farmer lost a lot of money last year, when more than 10 pigs died in the summer heat. What's more, the eruption of mouth-foot disease in a few places in Wanzhou caused pork prices to plummet.
Thanks to the national aid project for which Jiang applied in 2004, he's still in business. "I have noticed the pork price increasing online since the Spring Festival," Jiang grinned, rubbing together his callused hands.
The farmer hopes to clear his debts soon, because he predicted that the market would be promising.
Jiang said his annual income is about 120,000 yuan ($15,000), while it was only 2,000 yuan ($125) per year before he moved from his hometown.
Jiang hardly compares with other fellow migrates, who, to his knowledge, either conduct business, till lands or float in other cities to making a living. He believed his living condition was not worse than anyone else's.
"I have gotten the things urban people pursue - a house and car, for instance - even though my house is remote and even though my car is just for transporting pigs to meat-processing factory," he said, bursting into laughter.
"I am happy about my life."
Editor's note:
Something special starts today. It's the beginning of China Daily's series of special reports on topics as varied as homosexuality, religion, the Qinghai-Tibet railway, AIDS and China's military.
We will examine each subject in depth, with reports, photos, features and commentary painting a vivid picture of these often-controversial issues.
These are stories of real-life people and how they cope with the sometimes gut-wrenching, sometimes exhilarating, changes sweeping the country. These stories examine how official policies affect them and how they, in turn, shape official policies - how some make money and how some get left behind, and what's being done to help them. In short, they're about the real China.
We kick off with a Special Report on Chongqing, which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary of becoming the fourth centrally administered municipality after Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin.
(China Daily 06/21/2007 page21)
