CHINA> Regional
Reaping rich memories that flow through a village
By Wang Zhuoqiong (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-10-14 09:09

Students at an open-air bookstore in Linxian in 1982. [Courtesy of Nancy Jervis]

"The government also encouraged creativity and flexibility; taxes were lower, allowing people to accumulate capital," Jervis added.

"They've found life is a lot better, but not because of farming," Jervis said. "It is because they've found ways of getting out of the village and are sending money back to the village."

According to Jervis' survey of 61 households in 1981, more than 25 per cent of the men spent the year working on construction projects in big cities. Jervis said the number increased each year.

Students from Linzhou No 1 High School outside of class in May. Educational conditions have seen marked improvement with most children gaining access to middle school. [Courtesy of Jiang Dong]

Today Linzhou has 3,100 construction teams of about 210,000 migrant workers working on projects in 300 cities nationwide and overseas, bringing in a net income of 1.56 billion yuan, according to city head Wang.

Part of the incentive for people from Linxian county to go out and find jobs much earlier than those in other rural counties is due to the region's history.

"When people read about China, they think one policy applies to the entire country. But in this vast nation, even two villages in the same region can have different sub-cultures; they may speak different dialects and their architecture may vary," Jervis said.

"In development, it is important to look at your own history and resources - natural and human - in planning for the future," she added

That is what the leadership in Linxian did. From the collective commune to the household responsibility system, the leadership in Linxian combined the merits of two very different systems.

Then Party Secretary Ma Dongshen helped negotiate urban construction contracts and later became a labor contractor for the village.

He went as far as Tianjin, Sichuan province and the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region to seek contracts.

He made sure that if a project required five skilled workers, three apprentices would also be hired, so that younger workers could also learn the skills, Jervis said.

"They came to understand that collective action could get them some benefits. I believe this was due to the village's own history - experiencing combat during the anti-Japanese war and the cooperative movement in building the Red Flag Canal," she said.

The county made its name through the Red Flag Canal - an enormous irrigation project, the construction of which began in 1958, the year of the Great Leap Forward, and continued during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76).