Editor’s note: The author of this article is Bai Jingping, an official of the Finance Bureau of Jingbian County, Yulin City, Shaanxi Province, born in the rural areas of northern Shaanxi Province, China, grew up in the countryside since childhood, and returned to his hometown after studying and working abroad for 6 or 7 years. He was assigned to work in the county after taking the recruitment exam, but is no stranger to rural conditions. in August 2015, the author was assigned to serve in a village to further deepen his contacts, visits and understanding of the countryside. The residence of the untiring, act with loyalty. This article is the author to see through the current situation in the countryside after doing some analysis, worth every person to read and think deeply. The following is the full text.
Strictly speaking, my rural Life is divided in this way, before the age of 12, in the village to read elementary school, thoroughly rural dolls, study, donkey, dry farm work; 13 to 18 years old, the city to read secondary school, winter and summer and busy holidays, in addition to school tuition, back Home in the countryside, also dry farm work; 19 to 22 years old, Nanjing to read university, winter and summer back home in the countryside, less dry farm work; 22 to 24 years old, field After the age of 25, I worked in the county and often went back to the countryside, not doing farm work.
But this also gives me the double feeling of being a rural person in the city and a city person in the countryside: looking at modern city life from the perspective of a “country person”, and at the same Time But this also gives me the dual feeling of being a rural person in the city and a city person in the countryside: to see the modern city life from the perspective of a “country person” and to see the rural life under the impact of modernization from the perspective of a “city person.
As far as I can tell, the most salient aspects of rural life are population, land, industry, Marriage, old age, serious illness, and the disintegration of traditional customs.
Demographic Problems
In 1991, when I first started elementary school, there were more than 30 children in a class; in 1996, when I graduated from elementary school, there were only nine children left in the class.
Where did so many dolls go? Most of them followed the adults to the city, while a small number went to the countryside.
Before my Parents went to the city, my mother opened a kiosk in the village and rented the office room of the village committee.
Everyone was full of hope, thinking that good days were just around the corner. People live in hope, hope makes people refreshed, do things, full of energy, think that the future is bright, happiness will be greatly increased.
What we feel in the village now does not seem to be this hopeful energy, but rather the twilight spirit everywhere.
In terms of the distribution of the total population in the city and the village, 80% of the population lives in the city and 20% in the village.
At present, 70% of the people living in the village are over 70 years old, 20% are over 60 years old, 5% are over 50 years old and 5% are under 50 years old.
In the village, people over 40 years old are called young people, and they laugh at themselves as people who are not capable.
Most of those under 40 are in the city.
Some are in the city because of work, such as me, who has a stable job in the city through a series of exams such as the college entrance examination, and lives in the city completely.
Some are in town because of survival. Most young people earn more money by working in the city than by farming or herding sheep, and then they stay in the city for their children’s schooling.
Some are in the city because of face. The young people in the village are out, part of the young people in the city does not have the skills to survive, but die to stay in the city, because of the face, how embarrassing to stay in the village.
Some are in the city because of the city. Some people stay in the countryside, its income is much better than in the city, but do not stay in the village, earn death to run to the city, why? Because of the city’s flowers and wine. Some have become gangsters, some have done things like stealing chickens and dogs, and become a social instability factor.
The old and the young are in the village, people do not talk about what hope is pinned, the old generation, even if they can not help it, is used to their homeland, the young generation, but only temporarily pinned here, until the time to go to school, also went to the city with their parents.
A scattered population, an aging population.
Energy is limited, life is also limited, one after another, this generation began to wither away, most of them are laboring to the end, also passed away.
With the emergence of a new grave, the countryside, indeed, is no longer the place to go with clothes.
Land issues
Since the land was subcontracted to households in the 1980s, farmers in the village have been plowing their land with hope and sweat, whether they are old or young.
Before the implementation of the Zheng policy of returning farmland to forest, all that could be planted on the barren land in northern Shaanxi was planted in front of the village and behind the houses, in the ditches and pits, without leaving any dead space.
Each Family knows all the land boundaries of their land like the back of their hand, not a cent. Now, the land is uncultivated and the cultivators are aging.
Because of the low harvest, the young people do not want to cultivate the land, so now most of the young people in the village do not know how to cultivate the land, how to work, and many of them have forgotten how to hold a mattock.
In order to keep the land from being deserted, the fathers of the young people have to work, so now most of the people who plant in the village are over 50 years old.
The elderly people in their 60s and 70s in the village seldom sit at home and enjoy themselves. As long as they have the last bit of strength, they insist on working, thinking that it is a sin to spend the day idle.
Now from top to bottom, they are calling for and implementing land transfer, how to transfer? Policy many elderly people can not accept.
The young people do not plant, the old generation of land growers leave, and in another decade or so, some people do not know which piece of land their family is on.
Imagine, the old generation has withered away, the next generation can return to the village, can have a passion for farming, if not, what kind of village scene will it be?
The decline of the village will be an inevitable trend.
Industry
Industry is about the economic income and happiness of farmers. Nowadays, there are two kinds of industries: farming and breeding.
First of all, the planting industry, before the 1990s, farmers planted first of all to be self-sufficient, to solve their own Food problems, so the seeds are more varied, there are millets, rice, buckwheat, yams, corn, beans, sunflower, etc., the only cash crop is also yams and sunflower.
When my family farming, every year, planting a dozen acres of yams and a few acres of sunflower, in addition to the cost, there are two or three thousand dollars left, to basically maintain daily living expenses, not save money.
With the development of the economy and society, rice and flour have come into the daily life of farmers, so the land in addition to yams, corn, the other has basically retired from the stage of history.
But now the price of food can not be raised, in 2014, planting corn, a good harvest, in addition to the cost of each mu will have a balance of more than 1,100 yuan. If the harvest is bad, even this figure is less than.
If the family has 20 to 30 acres of land, the annual income is 20,000 to 30,000 yuan, in addition to the daily expenses such as the portal, but also can not save money.
Besides, the farming industry is to raise sheep and pigs.
A few years ago, when pigs were crazy, the old family stayed in the village, every family raised pigs. Investment ranging from 20,000 to 50,000 yuan, build pig houses, buy sows, buy feed.
But when the time came for the pigs to come out of the pen, the price of pork fell, and once the accounts were settled, even the cost could not be recovered. Give up, pig barn abandoned.
Now farmers raise pigs is also to eat that little pig-killing vegetables for the New Year.
Raising sheep, income is mainly selling sheep, selling cashmere, selling support is more sheep born lambs, can sell the number of sheep less than the number of lambs born, so that the old and new, scale expansion, the additive effect.
If the number of lambs born each year is less than the number of sheep that can be sold, it is a subtractive effect. Raising sheep, every day, someone has to get up early and take care of, if not on a large scale, raising dozens of sheep, income does not cover the cost of hardship, can only be said to raise sheep and sheep.
My second father raised sheep on a scale of about 200, but last year’s income was only 30,000 yuan, which is not much more than a year’s worth of family expenses.
The single industry, low income and the unpredictable market have left farmers at a loss, and they are gradually losing interest in the land. This is something to be considered by all those in power, from top to bottom.
The problem of marriage
First of all, there is the issue of money.
The original marriage is relatively simple, three major items, a watch, a bicycle, a sewing machine, pulling a donkey to marry a girl back to the earthen kiln, happy for life.
Later evolved into motorcycles, cell phones, silver bracelets, driving a motorized tricycle will take a girl back to the building board room, happy half life.
And now, money, money, money, a daughter-in-law at least 450,000 to marry home, happy for a while.
How to do the math? With the man in the city to house, to car, to Gold and silver clothes money.
A man in the village to marry a daughter-in-law, the woman wants a house, not for the time being, against into money 250,000 yuan. Want a car, buy, 100,000 yuan. To gold and silver jewelry clothes and bride price money, 100,000 yuan.
So now a popular saying: “marry a daughter-in-law, the old son 2 points loan, son 1 point 5 lending”. Poor old son, rich son.
My family’s eldest brother, gave birth to three sons, now each in their twenties, are talking about objects, a problem involving marriage, the other parent directly “just collapse”, because there is no money.
Talking about one object after another, just can not get married. So the cost of marriage to their sons is now a piece of mind of rural people, but also a major problem.
Furthermore, there is the problem of emotion.
As we know, compared to the stability and static nature of rural society, the most important feature of modern society is mobility: capital flow, material flow, population flow, emotional flow ……
Related to mobility is the “stranger” situation of urban life: going out in the dark, no one knows anyone.
So some of the young people who come into the city dare to do something wrong, no one knows, no one is pointing out. Relying on the current WeChat, Stranger and other communication software, to engage in extramarital affairs, more money in the eyes, less feelings in the heart.
Many rural couples in the city to rent a house, men working outside, the wife to children cooking, picking up children to school.
But the end result is that the man gave his wife out, the children back home.
The problem of old-age care
Because of the inadequacy of our national pension system, including most of the non-institutional people in the city and rural areas, old age must depend on themselves and their children.
Sickness is the number one problem of old age.
No illness or disaster is basically very good, but whenever there is a major illness, it is very troublesome. To be honest, in rural areas, in most places, when an old person gets seriously ill, he or she is waiting to die.
One is the problem of money. Although now engaged in cooperative medical care, the reimbursement rate has increased, but for most rural families, if you want to treat, will be a family, even the purchase of basic living materials are problems, so many elderly people refuse to treat, and as children also acquiesced, which is a very sad thing.
The second is the problem of no filial son at the bedside of a long illness. If you have daughters, the elderly are better off, and the daughters clean the elderly, eat and drink. Without daughters, the elderly will die quickly.
Indifference is the second major problem of old age.
In rural areas, the older generation and their next generation, there is indeed a spatial isolation, to do filial piety, basically can not talk, the elderly are self-supporting, even if more than eighty years old.
It is not difficult for the elderly to forget about each other, but unfortunately, the children are still nostalgic about the little property of their parents, always thinking that their share of it is the least, and do not ask what they have done for the elderly.
What’s more, the new house, some people do not want to live with the elderly, that is not clean, in the house next to another small bungalow, considered the parents’ shelter, the elderly occasionally to walk in the main room, but also attracted the daughter-in-law’s scolding, and even fist and foot, the reason is just stepped on the footprints in the house.
I work in the village, an old man raised three sons, the old man is now more than 80 years old, the oldest family established, the second bachelor, the third city blind.
The current situation is that the oldest house is next to where the elderly live, but the elderly do not care, regardless of death, the elderly and the second live together, is a three-room adobe house, the third can not control.
The old people often do not eat, not smoke and fire, I went to see the state of the family, the heart is really sad.
The older generation cannot feel warmth, and when survival is a problem, feelings may not really be guaranteed, causing the elderly to be lonely and helpless about life.
The indifference of affection without the relevant laws to sanction, the lack of morality and degradation, let people righteous indignation.
The problem of serious illness
Not long ago, a relative of mine in the village passed away. Not yet 50 years old, he had a brain infarction, and after treatment in a hospital in Yinchuan, his condition was under control.
However, because of the expensive cost, the treatment was interrupted at a later stage, which completely led to paraplegia and finally collapsed in the fight against the disease.
Although China has now implemented a system of rural medical care and major medical assistance, for rural people who really have a serious illness, it is unknown whether and how much assistance is in place, and even if it is in place, it will not solve the fundamental problem.
A major illness is a family change, a few hundreds of thousands of yuan, or millions of yuan of medical expenses is a heavy burden, so that the original well-off families completely back to poverty, and high debt.
Many rural people have to give up treatment, slowly waiting for the approach of death. When people die, the money is gone.
Disintegration of traditional customs
The impact of modern civilization and the gradual promotion of urban-rural integration have led to the collapse of the original vernacular system.
The “three kowtows and nine worships” in the countryside no longer exist, and the indifference in the city and the lack of traditional Culture have made the system in the city deformed, while the real system suitable for the Chinese city has not been established.
There is no faith, no religion, devouring the old capital maintained by the old generation with “moral righteousness”, which is unbelievable.
As the saying goes, city people are not like city people, and rural people are not like rural people, but like the movie “Old Guns” in which the sixth master said, how is a “two-tailed son”.
For example, the New Year, many people are now saying that the New Year is meaningless, no taste of the New Year.
The window stickers are gone, the hand-written couplets are gone, the 30 night offerings to the gods of the earth and Zaoma are gone, the 30 night dance with the gods is gone, the first morning of the New Year to the elders kowtowing to the New Year is gone ……
It is no longer the case that the ancient style is pleasant or that it is a stereotype, anyway.
For example, the contact between people, now the village people also, the family also, or relatives, to meet to pull on a few parental shortcomings, only in the red and white wedding event. Unlike the original, you lend my family two bags of yams, I lend your family a liter of rice, frequent interaction.
Now most of them stay in the city and have a tendency to die of old age.
Whenever my family (note: the family, the same clan) has something to do, everyone gathered together, all the village people, but many younger than me, but I do not know.
Even my family’s nephew, who is 11 years old, I asked, “What do you call me, but he does not know, is a sad thing.
I am thinking that by my son’s generation, not to mention the village people know each other, the relationship between the family brothers are also distant.
With the accelerated pace of life, the relationship between the “family themselves”, “relatives six people”, and “neighbors” in the eyes of the older generation has been completely severed by reality.
The so-called: the voice of the countryside does not change, where the guests come from, but is just a story that happens every year.
In my opinion, in the end, the problem of rural areas is the problem of incongruity between the head and the pace. Sometimes the head is fast, but the pace is slow; sometimes the pace is fast, but the head is slowed down.
First of all, the head, which contains the system policy, ethical relations, ideas and concepts.
The problem of ethical relationship is the biggest problem that tests the ability of today’s intellectual community, and it is also the acute problem that cuts the intellectual community in terms of realistic judgment.
Ideological concepts are closely related to the level of Education and late learning that people receive. With a low level of education, a single knowledge structure and an aging way of thinking, there are many people who categorize success as opportunistic and relational.
The indifference to education, the disdain for learning, the cynicism of the reader is not worth a glass of white wine when, how to talk about ideas? How can we talk about ideas?
Do not let higher education become a game played by city people, do not let rural people feel that investing in their children’s education is something that can not be returned, the implementation of comprehensive higher education, vocational education, and gradually improve the quality of generations, to create an atmosphere of learning, is the urgent need to address the issue at hand.
Besides, the pace follows the infrastructure construction, medical, education and pension security measures, and the development of industries.
Infrastructure construction and livelihood protection measures, in my opinion, are slower than the head, and not a little slower, in line with the saying “a clever woman can’t cook without rice”.
In terms of industry, due to the asymmetry of market information, farmers are not able to judge the market, and they can’t get along with their heads, so they gradually lose interest in developing industry in rural areas.
The lack of coordination between the head and the pace has led to a series of problems in the countryside, some of which are single and some of which are several iterations. These problems plague not only farmers, but also policy makers.
It is difficult for people in history to make an objective and fair evaluation and judgment of the society in the period they live in.
For someone like me, who comes from a rural background, it is no longer clear whether my old home is now my hometown or another country.
But I don’t want to see the rural atmosphere of my childhood disappear without a trace, and I don’t want to see the rural scene now is as poor as when I was a child.
You love or do not love, she is there; you see or do not see, she has lived in your heart.
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