A taste of real farm labor on Labor Day

Do you want to be a two-day farmer, a friend asks me just before the May Day holiday. Why not, I think, it must be a lot of fun. I accept happily, hoping to have a real Labor Day.

The farmland she mentions is actually the empty garden of her villa in Yanqing, a mountainous district, some 80 km northwest of Beijing, close to the Badaling section of the Great Wall.

It is a 666-sq-m courtyard. The garden surrounding the two-storey house is unkept and wild. We plan to plant two peach, two apricot and two apple trees. Unfortunately, we are told we are two weeks late for tree planting. We have to wait until next April. Quite disappointed, we stand in the courtyard, watching the couple next door plowing their land, some of which already shows signs of green.

"You can grow corn," says the woman next door. "I have the seeds." She is back with a bowl of pink-colored seeds.

Finally, we have something to do. I volunteer to dig the holes, thinking it will be quite easy to use the spade. The first hole is perfect, the second okay, but I almost break the spade with the third one, as it hits a rock. I can now feel beads of perspiration on my brow. The digging that follows is a mix of the difficult and easy. I manage to dig 40 holes each big enough for two seeds.

Since we have nothing more to do we decide to take a stroll. It is interesting to see people busy digging everywhere - either inside the courtyard, or in the open areas.

The site of the villas used to be a small village at the foot of Mount Senmao with limited arable land. Several years ago, the village head decided to develop the land as real estate to rid the villagers of poverty. He built 500 villas and several apartment buildings. The villagers moved into a four-storey apartment building and enjoy free housing in addition to receiving some money. They no longer work in the fields. Instead, the men are busy with the interior decor of the villas. The women and elderly people like to sit in front of their building, chatting.

"I find it most interesting to watch those city people doing farm work," says an old man in his 70s, surnamed Zhao. "Look at that courtyard," he points to a villa at the corner. "He has too many things in his field," he says. We realize that we know the owner, an IT manager.

"I don't care about the results," says Huang Sheng, the owner. "I enjoy the sweating and the aches and pains," he adds, holding a spade and wiping his sweat with his dusty T-shirt.

In his 333-sq-m courtyard, he has planted 16 trees including apples, peaches, pears, and persimmon.

I stand on a piece of brick and don't know where to move my feet. It seems like something is growing on every available patch of land. Huang proudly points to the corner by the iron fence saying he is growing sweet melons and beans. He says the place where I am standing is for peanuts, though all I can see in the yard is one patch of green onion saplings.

Although he still has his city belly, his face has taken on a healthy tan. "Come this autumn, you may get something," Huang says. I am sure it will be one busy garden.

(China Daily 05/08/2008 page20)