For thousands of years in China the word "farmers" has been a synonym for poverty, backwardness and ignorance. During the Cultural Revolution to send somebody to the countryside was a coded way of saying that he was being punished. Therefore, after my retirement at age 55 all my friends were surprised to hear that I was going to return to my childhood farming village to become the village's Party Secretary. Some even called me to check if this was true.
It was not hearsay that I refused the offer of paid positions by a few private universities in Xi’an. Instead I accepted the invitation by the Wujing Township Party Committee and Government to volunteer as the political leader of Anshang Village.
“You are the right person who can handle the present situation in the village,” said a Party Leader of the township, and I knew he was correct.
I was born and grew up in Anshang Village. I began to do farm work when I was eight years old. I did not leave this village till the age of 20 when I went to college. I was the first student in Anshang to do so. Afterwards I was able to go out into the outside world, travel to many countries and see with my own eyes how other people work and live. Then 18 years ago I studied and translated China Builds for Democracy by Helen Foster Snow. These things led me to wonder if China could build her democracy from the grass roots level.
Though 50 years have passed, I feel even closer to this land now than I did then. Therefore, I had no choice but to accept the Party Leader’s offer.
There were many problems in Anshang. As an old saying goes, those living on a mountain get their living from the mountain, and those living near the water get their living from the water. There is neither mountain nor river in or near Anshang village. Anshang is located in a flat but high plateau. The underground water is as deep as 240 meters. Though the village has good irrigation cannel networks, the farmers can only irrigate their fields twice a year by using the water from a reservoir a hundred kilometers away. The shortage of water prevents the village from developing its versatile agricultural production or agriculture related businesses. How to increase the farmers’ family income became a major issue for the village leadership. How could we make a living since we couldn’t make one from the mountain or water? What did we have here? Finding an answer to this question was the challenge that was given to me.
The Party Leader wanted me to lead Project Peace, which was a joint effort by Global Volunteers, a non-government organization headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota, and the Sino-American Society, a non-government organization headquartered in Xi’an, China. It would include building a village school and library, promoting our cultural heritage, and helping the villagers become comfortable with democratic ways of doing things. It was a big job, one that was made possible by donations from hundreds of American friends I had made through my work with Global Volunteers
Project Peace was near and dear to my heart for two reasons. First of all, it would be a living monument to fraternal cooperation between Global Volunteers and the Sino-American Society, as well as a symbol of the friendship between the U.S. and China. It would also be a fitting memorial to my daughter Annie’s dedication to world peace.
This project must be completed. Nothing negative should be created to harm the Chinese-American friendship.
After two year’s planning and preparation, groundbreaking took place on April 10, 2002, although I did not officially take over the leadership until March, 2003. Mr. X, the village leader, was very enthusiastic about this project and voiced his full support for it at the beginning. However, he suddenly changed in his attitude when the construction started. By the time the framework was completed, he openly opposed the project and began to create obstacles and roadblocks.
This was disappointing but not unusual. Corruption had become rampant among the officials at the grass-roots level in China since 1990’s. Yan Guo Ba Mao 雁过拔毛, which translates as “pulling a feather from every flying wild goose that passes by,” means that “to get rich, you have to get hold of a project.” Mr. X and other village leaders had been warned that Project Peace was funded by donations, but Mr. X still thought that he could pull a feather from the wild goose and get some personal benefit from this project.
He did not realize that the payment was made in installments directly to the contracted building corporation without going through the villagers’ committee. When he learned this, he flew into a rage and said to his close friends: “I am in charge here in the village, yet I am not allowed to touch the funds! Why should I support this project?” As the president of Sino-American Society, I made it very clear to everyone from the very beginning that every dollar should be used on the construction itself. I also made it clear that villagers should be encouraged to volunteer their labor on the construction.
So there were lots of problems and contradictions. Villagers complained to me that every single decision was made by one or two village leaders. There was no open administration of village affairs, such as openness in management, in financial affairs, in labor matters and in the use of land for housing. They told me that about two million RMB Yuan had been collected by the village committee from individual families in eight years beginning from 1995, but the financial account was never disclosed to the public. Villagers wanted to know where their money had gone. This was indeed a great challenge for me. It was obvious that I was expected by the villagers to do much more than just complete the construction of Project Peace.
I spent three months on first hand investigation. I chatted with individual farmers and tried to find out the major problems. Then I worked to find a way to resolve them. Due to the farmers’ lack of education and isolation from the outside world, it was very hard to explain to them the government policy and the right way to do things. Most of the farmers kept their eyes only on their own specific and trivial issues.
One day I played a little game with them. I asked some villagers to measure the length of a log. They said the log was 5.12 meters long, but I said it might be longer than that. I measured it again all by myself. It turned out to be 5.22 meters. Why the difference? They looked puzzled and scratched their heads.
“You are right”, I said with a smile. “I did not pull the ruler straight. The ruler was in my hand!” Then they realized that in order to manage the village affairs in an open and fair way, the villagers must be in charge. The Village Committee must follow the rules and regulations that were agreed to by the majority of the villagers.
As a first step, villagers were organized to study the Organization Law of the Villagers Committees of the People’s Republic of China (OLVC). Though the OLVC was officially adopted by the National People’s Congress in 1998 after eleven years on trial and had been brought into operation for five years, not a single farmer in Anshang Village had ever heard of this law. Like a beacon at night, the OLVC gave hope to the farmers. Discussions, panel talks and village meetings were held in each of the five neighborhoods on how to implement the law and turn Anshang into a well-off village. Delegates were directly elected, each of them representing ten families. After four months of study and preparations, the first Villagers Congress was convened in September 2003. The “one-person-in-charge” system was abolished once for all, and the Village Committee was turned into a primary mass organization of self-government.
Now the villagers manage their own affairs, educate themselves and serve their own needs. Direct elections are conducted, decisions adopted, administration maintained and supervision exercised by democratic means. At the first Villagers Congress, the Five-Year Program for Economic and Social Development was officially adopted by voting, and decisions were also made on major issues left by history.
In the past five years the Villagers Congress successively held eleven plenary sessions and adopted 32 regulations and decisions regarding management of village affairs. The initiative and enthusiasm of the farmers has been brought into full play. With a goal in mind and regulations to follow, the Anshang villagers have been working with one mind and heart to make their dreams come alive.
To further develop agricultural production and improve the farmers’ lives we made a big effort to transform the power supply system and rebuild the irrigation canals in the first year.
There were no roads in the village, only dirt paths. This meant that in the dry season dust flew everywhere, and in the rainy season there was deep mud everywhere. The entire village cooperated in 2004 to build the first cement-paved road. As the people in each neighborhood came to see the advantages of this, they began to pave their own roads. In the past four years they have paved ten streets that total 2,400 meters. New homes have been built or reconstructed according to the general planning of the village, streets expanded, drainage systems built, trees and grass planted along the roadsides, and flower beds and gardens have been built inside and outside the new school campus.
Thanks to the full support of the villagers and their continuous volunteer labor, the school and library were finally completed and put into official use in the spring of 2005. The grand dedication was held on September 1st and attended by 30,000 local people.
The school and library both provide very good facilities and do a great service for the entire community. On the third floor of the library we put up a permanent exhibition entitled Forging Peace through Service- Global Volunteers in China. With over 130 photos, the exhibition shows the power of volunteerism and how the various service programs provided by Global Volunteers beginning in 1996 changed both the physical and spiritual world of the villagers.
In addition to building the school and library, we wanted to establish a gallery to showcase our local handicrafts. Over the years, the people in this area, which is part of the ancient Land of Bronze, have created various folk handcrafts by taking local resources as their subjects and using a concise and somewhat exaggerated technique. Whatever you see — clay sculpture, paper cutting, straw weaving, leather figurines for shadow play, embroidery, cloth-works, lacquer painting, ladle mask and woodblock prints — are embodied in the cultural style and charm of the Chou [1121 B.C. - 771 B.C.] and Chin [677 B.C. - 206 B.C.] periods.
When the North American volunteers learned this, they were fascinated. With their encouragement, we decided to remodel the old school house and turn it into a folk art gallery where young folk artists could be trained, artistic skills be shared, and new art works be shown. In addition, it would be used as a distributing center for our folk handicrafts.
To promote this new idea and new product, we held the first Folk Art Festival in the spring of 2007, during which the Chou-Chin Folk Art Gallery was officially opened to the public. This was the first time that such an event had been organized by farmers in a village, and therefore many people were intrigued. On the opening day more than 30,000 people came to hear addresses by Chinese government leaders at the provincial, municipal and county levels. In addition, 35 people, representing ten countries, attended, and we received congratulatory messages from 16 American VIPs, including Walter Mondale, James McGovern, General Colin Powell and Bernard Loeffke. This successful event was well covered by 20 media including CCTV.
By creating many “firsts,” Anshang village made its first step forward in developing its cultural products and tourism industry.
Following the folk art festival, visitors and tourists kept traveling to Anshang. We hosted people such as the Lt. Governor of Minnesota, and groups such as the White House Fellows, St. Cloud State University professors and groups of students. The White House Fellows delegation of 16 people stayed in Anshang village for two days. They were deeply impressed by the farmers and their children. They learned about the Chinese people and their culture by visiting two wonderful exhibitions in the village, working in the fields together with the farmers, staying in their homes, enjoying the delicious local food and hearing stories of the past and present. The farmers shared with the Fellows their experiences, told them of the pleasure they took in farming and explained how they were learning to live under the new democratic system. Though their visit to Anshang was very short, the Fellows witnessed the inside of China and saw a real picture of this country and her people.
From agriculture to culture production, Anshang found a way to increase the farmers’ income. This was unbelievable to many local people at the beginning. This big-leap-forward involved changing their concepts and was made possible by their constant exposure to well-educated people like the Global Volunteers.
The first three Global Volunteers teams worked side by side with the Chinese farmers on the construction site of Project Peace. In 2004 the team members began to train local English teachers. We hosted four teams each year, and hundreds of English teachers came to Anshang from all parts of the province to participate in the training program. Anshang was full of well-educated people for three months each year. The villagers fully exposed themselves to these domestic and foreign visitors. They were strongly influenced by new ideas, a new way of life, and even a new way of dressing themselves. Many villagers — old and young, men and women — learned to greet foreign visitors in English.
“Anshang is different because the villagers are different,” commented the local farmers. The local leaders refer to the progress in Anshang as "the Anshang phenomenon." Anshang people showed folks from other villages that miracles could be created by the people as long as they accepted and mastered advanced ideas and had their future and destiny in their own hands.
China has been changing at a high speed in the past 30 years, but it is inevitably repeating some of the mistakes other industrial countries have made. I am so pleased that the Anshang villagers are fully aware of environmental and ecological issues. As a wheat- and corn-producing village, Anshang will make a big effort to develop green agricultural products by reducing the use of chemical fertilizer and insecticides. Plans are also being made to develop clean fuel by building a firedamp facility for each family. To stop straw burning after each harvest and prevent air pollution, straw processing plants are to be built that will turn the wheat straw and corn stalks into new products and thereby increase the farmers’ income.
The farmers have now come to the conclusion that education, and education alone, is the only way for them to break down the circle of poverty. According to the five-year program of the village, Anshang will bring up 100 college students in the ten years between 2003 and 2012. Once this goal is achieved, the farmers' dreams will materialize as Anshang will have been turned into a new village by the standards of productivity, well-off life, civilized lifestyle, clean & tidy appearance of the village and democratic management.
Thanks to the government new policy of “putting people in the first place” and “building up a harmonious society,” I see a much brighter future for our villagers. Harmony — HEXIE 和谐 in Chinese language — is now becoming a key word in our daily life. It is very interesting to know that the two ideographic characters of this word convey two important meanings: HE 和means “there is food in every mouth” and XIE 谐means “the right of speech belongs to all.” Even the creator of the Chinese characters knew the real meaning of harmony thousands of years ago. There is no harmony to talk about without material wealth and political democracy.
Today the villagers have broadened their outlook and accepted new ideas. Guided by Global Volunteers, they have experienced the pleasure of volunteering and helping each other. They have also become interested in the outside world and eager to learn new things. On April 10, 2005 Anshang became the first farming village in west China to officially launch its own website. This means that the farmers are no longer confined to their small village. It is no longer just a dream to “go to the world while sitting at home.” The outside world can also learn what is going on in Anshang just by simple clicking.
I never dreamed that I would be able to participate in such a dream-making project. I am very pleased and proud that my villagers took the lead in building up their democratic system five years ahead of all the other villages in the area.