My Life as a (American) Chinese Farmer.
by Joshua N. D'Aluisio-Guerrieri


Forward:

I'm not Chinese; but this certainly isn't the first time I've lived with a farming Chinese family. Despite having experienced many unique, out-of-the-way places, in all my previous visits I've never been able to escape the fixed nature of a host-guest relationship, and hence never been allowed to help out with the work. This foray into the countryside of Guangxi, a province in southern China, is intended to find an opportunity to break that tradition and allow me to not only personally feel and know some of the characteristics of country life here, but perhaps more importantly, also allow me access to a much greater range of situations in which to interact with the locals, providing more perspective than I've ever been able to achieve with mere visits or short stays.

-----------------------------------------------6/25/01

Monday, 6:00 AM:

Yesterday was a long trip despite the short 40 km distance to our destination. Yin Xianshi, introduced to me just that morning, agreed to take me to live with his family in Wuming county, just north of Nanning, Guangxi's capital. Since he doesn't often return home from his work in the city, Xianshi had several people to see in the county town (Wuming) before we headed to his family's village. That resulted in a lot of China's national pastime: sitting around and waiting... waiting for transportation, waiting for people who will inevitably be late, or just waiting for something to happen.

On the minibus from the county town, almost everyone who got on and off along the way knew each other, an obvious sign you are approaching the sticks. Of course, the numerous empty chicken baskets (the chickens having been sold in town) also gave away our location. The fields we passed indicate an area of incredibly diverse agriculture, with rice, sugar cane, corn, bananas, lychee, and bamboo, among other things. But except for the sugar cane, which is sold to local factories to be processed into sugar, most of the crops are consumed by the local families.

We got off the bus and followed a dirt path into the fields, away from the paved road. During the mile walk to the village, I discussed with Xianshi what I planned to do. His reaction was expected: "It's hard work," he said, "I would never do it!" This 24-year-old is obviously gripped by city life. He continued: "If you can stay out here for more than a day, I'll be surprised." [Of course, if he were right, then I would have had to re-title my journal "My Life NOT as a (American) Chinese farmer", not nearly as appealing.]

We finally came to the village, a varied collection of brick structures that house 29 families. A typical house contains a courtyard around which are rooms for living and storage, and a large kitchen/dining room. The rooms are in 1-story, tile-roof buildings and/or two-story buildings with a flat concrete roof. In their house at the southern edge of the village I met Yin Xianshi's parents: Yin Guoliao, his dad, and his mom Lu Xiuying. They, too, wore expressions of disbelief when I mentioned my purpose. Xianshi's mom actually doesn't often return home from her job selling fruit and vegetables in Wuming, but she decided to make an exception and stay for a while to see how I'll get along...

I got along fine until I sat down. It was then that I noticed my legs were covered with tiny black dots. I brushed them off without much thought, but when I looked down a moment later, there they were, again. This was my introduction to the "ultra-tiny daytime mosquito." Funny that I'd never seen one before. What pests! Now my legs are riddled with hundreds of red marks. About this time I was thinking repellant would've been a good idea.

By late afternoon it got cloudy due to a nearby rainstorm and cooled off enough for a comfortable walk. (Good, a chance to move away from those mosquitos.) Just outside the family compound is another, smaller compound for storage and raising animals. Xianshi was surprised to see that all his family has is one pig. (But it's certainly a BIG pig.) Tied to a tree not far from the compound is the family's ox, a necessity for plowing as well as carting crops and equipment. Our walk took us around the small reservoir just south of the village. As they depend mostly on abundant rainfall, there is no irrigation system; but in case of serious drought there is always the reservoir. Drinking water on the other hand was, until last year, drawn by bucket from a large, artificial pond of ground water, a task many villagers did away with last year by installing well pumps in their compounds.

Once back at the house, we snacked on some rice noodles before three teenage neighbors came over to play on the deteriorating pool table in the courtyard. I played with them for a little while, but then stopped to help Xiuying pick bugs out of a basket of rice. Since they also run the village's only "convenience store," their house sees a lot more visitors than most, and villagers often congregate in the courtyard to chat and hang out. Everyone who stopped by was very surprised to see a foreigner, and even more surprised, or amused, to see me helping Xiuying clean rice. More and more people showed up, and even after dark there were still about thirty villagers chatting and playing pool and Chinese chess. More than once those welcoming me would say "it's better here. If you go off into the mountains, life is much harder." Strangely, city people say the same thing about the coming out to any countryside village, but from what I've seen so far, it would seem they have plenty of time to rest and play.

One of the visitors just had to take me to see the new "gas cesspool" he is building. It's an underground, spherical (7-8ft diam.), concrete structure that every family has, always near both the toilet (hole in the ground) and the animal raising area. All excrement is directed to the vat, in which it gradually gasifies and travels through plastic tubes to the kitchen. There the flow is controlled by tiny valves and the gas is used to power their stoves and special gas lights. Efficient!

Dinner was just as I've come to know it in China's countryside: damn good. Rice, rice porridge, bean sprouts, sour baby bamboo shoots (also locally grown) and pork, and bitter melon and pork. The dinner conversation was quite varied. I've had a tough time understanding their heavy accent, but I'm getting used to it. Since I just arrived, many of the topics revolved around the same questions I'd been asked all day, such as things about American factories, farming methods, and eating habits. (Most of the villagers think Americans eat only bread instead of rice.) Less expected, we talked about the recent EP-3 spy plane incident, and I told them about my experience comparing the different reports given by the New York Times and People's Daily while the incident was happening. This of course led to a discussion of media and freedom of the press...

Well, so far there's little to distinguish this visit from your average jaunt to the country. It's a slow start, but if everything goes well, the speed will pick up soon... I hope.