One thing that has increasingly struck me on visits to my fiancée’s isolated hamlet is how increasingly un-isolated it is becoming. 
First, the Xi-Han high-speed road dissected a local valley. At the beginning it was just an impressive stretch of glistening black tarmac without a car in sight, last year the odd car or lorry appeared every once in a while as a distraction from hours in the fields, this year it wasn’t possible to have a sequence of time where there wasn’t a vehicle on the road- the almost silence was deafening.
Secondly, on my first visit a few years ago there was only a mud road from the nearby town through neighbouring villages to this small hamlet, now there is a smooth line of concrete not only connecting these small villages to a larger town but the smaller villages to each other. Though, we have in fact just used some of the stone and brick fragments left over from one of the ubiquitous house rebuilds, even here in the hamlet, to help level the still rough track outside the family home. The engagement of a local girl to a laowai (foreigner) doesn’t seem to have meant that the couple are excluded from local chores, in fact over time it might just make me more responsible for them. One of the pressures that does seem to have come with engagement and impending marriage is the responsibility laid upon my shoulders, maybe literally if all else fails, to help rebuild the family home.
*Villages in China are going through the same infrastructural changes the towns and cities are, it is just the development here is from a more basic starting point; for many, running water, heat and an inside toilet, a washing area and something more than concrete floors and walls would be good. While many of those who have worked for years as a Da Gong (factory worker) in the Eastern manufacturing belt are using their savings to build three floor brick and white tile homestead homages to relative wealth.
Families here in the villages are all under the pressure of division; men and women folk alike are separated from children and extended family for a number of years as they depart to the eastern cities as factory workers; to in this order: pay for survival, children’s education and home improvements. The order of the latter two are interchangeable depending generally on the sex of the child and/ or the parents’ views on the importance of education to their child, as well as of course, on who their daughter or son has been married off too!
I will finish this note with reference to a quote from Thomas L. Friedman I read a few weeks ago:
‘Think about all the hype, all the words, that have been written about China’s economic development since 1979. It’s a lot, right? What if I told you this: “It may be that we haven’t seen anything yet.’
I saw, while practicing English with my girlfriend’s young cousin (whose older sister is herself working as a Da Gong to help pay for his education), millions of other bright faces from villages across China; who have quick minds, who are able to study but aren’t quite yet being allowed into the wider society of opportunity. This is changing slowly as a little bit of wealth seeps further into the poorer areas of Chinese society and into the education system and it does seem it will continue to change.
There is at present a bottomless pool of labour in the villages that fits China’s manufacturing base of development, there is also a sea of untapped intellect that may well have a contribution to make as China’s economy moves upscale. The rawness of life still here and the potential is frightening. It is an exciting prospect even if somewhat daunting for other nations to acknowledge and even if these opportunities still have a long way to go to be experienced more generally. On the basis of a simple universal hope for humanity; a hope not conditioned by any political doctrine, form of political administration or culture, I hope nothing stops this progress.
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Others might disagree- I add the article for the sake of balance and as I just came across it, not because I think the article itself offers anything in the realm of balanced journalism.
* I neglected to take pictures when in the village, apart from a picture of my girlfriends young cousin which was actually taken by a 4 year old neighbour! CjGo Travel, if you follow the link on the picture, has some good photographs of buildings whose construction is representative of houses in most villages.
The images are from Kashgar- here they link to the China News Page.
Sep. 9th China Tops Renewable Energy Investment Index – 2point6billion.com
Social Networking in Xi'an
秦始皇
西安