The 'brother and sister' who have cultivated success

The value of an old name is difficult to measure. The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps may sound like a quaint setup to outsiders, but in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, the nickname "Bingtuan" is heard almost everywhere, every day.

Many families in the region are second - or third-generation Bingtuan workers, as befits a provincial-level organization with a history of 61 years. The corps is currently composed of 14 divisions and 176 regiments, located across Xinjiang, and its 2.7 million members account for nearly 12 percent of the regional population.

The very word "Bingtuan" represents a wealth of stories, especially for its thousands of workers and their families who migrated to China's westernmost region. Some stories tell of hardship, the "eating bitterness" the pioneer builders endured as they struggled to transform the Gobi Desert into fertile farmland. Others speak of the production of foods that are rarely seen elsewhere in China; few people realize that the tomatoes used in 70 percent of the tomato sauces sold in the Europe are grown in the vast fields of Xinjiang. There are also tales of the corps' success in rejuvenating itself and exploiting new opportunities.