Chengdu, bunch of People — 15 to 17/10
At the airport leaving for Chengdu the guide went to take our tickets; When he handed it to me, I looked and said: My name is longer than Marilia’s. Guo, our interpreter, looked over and said, Hers is written Malila and yours is written (all with Chinese characters) Malila’s mother.
We went to Beijing airport on October 15 at 2 pm. Our plane scheduled to leave at 4:30 pm. We passed the control and went to the waiting room at 4 pm. Our guide’s companion went to check our bags. Overweight. I had to pay 120 yuan. I went to change dollars and couldn’t. After all Guo lent me 100 yuan.
4:30 pm — plane without arrival forecast. Full waiting room, mostly men. They line up with carry-on baggage on the floor to secure their place on the plane, although tickets have seats marked. At 7:30 pm they warned that everyone could go to dinner because the plane would take time. We would only leave at 9:30 pm. We had dinner, came back at 9.30 pm, then warned us that the flight had been canceled. It would leave the next day at 9:15 am. Just this. Dinner on our own, back to town on our own, etc. The company pays nothing, nobody complains, nobody says anything against it. They leave the airport laughing, cheerful and seeming to have received good news. Guo went to the phone to warn the hotel. Taxi to the city? Too expensive. There was a very comfortable bus. We saw some people taking. We went too. Great. We got to the city center, took a taxi and just arrived at our hotel.
We left again at 6:45 am to have breakfast at the airport. This time we got a Mercedes limo. The three of us behind: Lian, me and Guo. In front was the chauffeur in white gloves and the escort Mon Ji. As the bags were checked in yesterday, we had no problem today. New line, new wait, but at 9:15 am they boarded us. We took off at 9:30 am — 2:15 am — crowded plane. It seems everyone left to pee on the plane because there was a line during the flight. They serve canned orange juice and a box of horrible dry cookies filled with dark sugar. Then tea or coffee.
At the airport waiting for us a small, skinny little girl, about 28 years old, friendly, speaks English, concerned to serve us in the best way possible. She told us that she couldn’t get a plane from here to Chongqing so we have to go by train. And now? Four heavy bags plus carry-on luggage. Even train cabin does not fit. And load? No way.We decided to get to the hotel and rearrange our bags and ship to Guangzhou, which is our last stop in China, leaving only one suitcase with the essentials. Only Helô’s acupunctures almost occupy an entire suitcase, plus what we buy and what we get, more Lian books, etc., the luggage reproduces at each stop.
We went with Xiao (escort in Chengdu) to the railway station.
This is the most populous region in all of China. The size of Minas Gerais with the population of Brazil. The city (capital) about 3 million inhabitants. Bikes by the hills like an ant. Really like this I have never seen anything in my life. Bunch of people, of all ages. It’s almost like a movie theater in Belo Horizonte.
The cars go through the streets honking for those who want to overtake, without stopping honking for cyclists as well. It’s crazy the traffic. At any moment it seems that there will be a crash, because the car leaves on the right side, goes to the very left, dodging bicycles, sometimes it seems that it will go further left, letting the cars that come to your right ( almost) turn right, always honking, almost run over cyclists at intersections. It is total madness.
It was good that we started with Beijing, which is nothing compared with this, because we had a chance to get used to this madness. But with this here I find it hard to get used to. It was good to come here to see what a population explosion causes. It is depressing, sad to see this impressive amount of people living as the people of this province live. I can’t even describe it!
Around the railway station there is no asphalt. It is gray earth, it seems mixed with coal. Tents that should be houses, without doors where they make food in stoves by the street.
People eating in little bowls crouched on all sides. Everbody looks at us as we pass (the car had to be about 100 meters from the dispatch site and the four of us carrying the bags. Nobody deserves !).
We wait a half hour for Xiao and Guo to arrive with a paper, labels, etc. Let’s pay: 78 kg !!! 160 yuan. All right. It is preferable to keep charging all the time. Until all this was over it was 4:30 pm. At 5:30 pm we would have to go to the hotel restaurant with a foreign relations officer. We took a little walk and came to a wash time hands for dinner.
Typical food of the region. More spicy, but delicious and light. Toast with brandy and wine tasty Porto. More three toasts at the end of dinner. Lian and I took a walk outside the hotel, seeing the paintings on the sometimes dark sidewalk, lit by street vendor lanterns.
the morning we went to the countryside. The chauffeur looked like a madman running around in the midst of other cars, bicycles, and small tractors, on the verge of an accident all the time, honking without stopping.
“Golden Horse” County Wen Wiang, about 12 miles from Chengdu. Small peasant village, large producer of vegetables. Every foot of land is taken advantage of. Even the tombs between the trays are planted with vegetables. Very fertile land.
A woman is a village leader and has the main function of propagating party politics to the village people. It has contacts with the provincial directorate and also has its piece of land. It conveys the requests of the peasants to the provincial party leaders, both in labor and social, economic terms.
Workers divided into five groups; 305 families = 1,330 inhabitants and 85 ha of cultivated land. They produce rice, wheat, safflower, flax, garlic, vegetables. Capital: 1,100,000 yuan. Two trucks, 17 mostly small tractors, over 100 agricultural machines: engines and oil machines.
In the past there was a lot of flooding by the Ji Jiang River. Dikes and canals were made to avoid this. Gravity irrigation. With the new policy cereal production has increased. In 1985, there were 850 T of grain. Last year’s production was 130 T higher than in 1978. More than 20 industrial companies (agricultural products, transport, construction material, pig breeding, fish, bees, silkworms, poultry, etc.). There are only buffaloes (no dairy cows, no horses). Animal creations at family level.
In 1985 total revenue of 1,370,000 yuan (1,000,000 industry in auxillary services). Per capita income 730 yuan / year.
Before 1978 only cereals, no industry.
Beginning of industrial development brought two transformations: 1st responsibility of production; 2nd restructuring of production, for example, part of land for production of fish ponds, creation of other industries and ancillary services (pig, fish and seed farming).
In 1985, 80 percent of the peasant population built or remodeled their home — in every village more than a thousand rooms, a reception and other utility house, a movie and theater, and a sausage factory. Government makes agreement with families. One hectare is divided by 16 people. They spend a maximum of two months / year on agriculture, the rest of the time they work in industry. Half of the crop is mechanized. Time available or for industry or have small shops in the villages to sell your surplus products.
Politically one can join the lands of more than one family. Some have reached almost 40 Mus (one mu equals 1/15 hectare or 650 m²). None abandon their parcel of land by tradition? Answer: Larger production now at the will of the peasant, not at the will of the government. If one family grants their land to another and goes to work in the industry (the production is worth about 300 yuan / year) that one gets from this 300 yuan / year, because it can produce more valuable things for higher income. With linen up to about 600 yuan / year.
In this village, however, does not have this system yet. But everyone has or gets enough to produce food for the family. The rest of the land, some lend to others. Before 1980 there was collective land and the rest divided by families — now it is all divided by families which gives each one a larger area. Formerly responsible for production is now familiar.
Let’s visit the health center, primary school, biogas producer.
Lian wants contact with peasants. We went on foot to visit the fields, to see the peasants working in the field. The lands are plowed, some already barred. But we saw peasants with hoes in hand working in the field. We went to see closely.
Each board is about 50 meters wide by 100 meters long — the peasant put a wire in the width and followed it making every 30 cm in line, then shifted the wire 30 cm further and made the other line. from pits. Just a hoe. With each wire he makes two rows of pits. The tombs are already seedling about to be planted: it is safflower. A neighbor has come to help and is pulling the seedlings while he prepares the graves. He then comes with a bag of more than 10 pounds of phosphate and throws a handful (about a tablespoon) into each pit. The neighbor is then planting the seedlings behind.
The Shit Day
Today is the day to put shit on the crops — Friday afternoon. They all come with a stick on their shoulders, a wooden bucket at each end hanging from shit. Bring another set of buckets. With a bucket on the end of a 1.50 m cable they take half of the shit into the empty buckets. They just fill them all with water and with the bucket they are throwing in safflower crops, new beets, etc. In almost every safflower field today we have seen this scene. Today China smelled like shit.
Everywhere in the village there are toilets to collect droppings. Even I cooperated.
Periodically those who work in the field have buckets attached by ropes to the two ends of a stick that carry on their shoulders full of excrement. In the crop they use a shell in which they fit around 2 liters, with a cable of about 1.5 meters with which they spread the material in the crop. However, they only use this type of fertilizer in corn, rice, soybean, or other grain for oil, etc. Never in vegetable gardens. And despite this care, they do not eat any raw vegetables.
In the countryside the peasant houses are in the center of a huge thicket of bamboo — they say it is to make the house cooler. But there is still much misery.
I don’t know why the Chinese with so much water haven’t learned to wash the floors yet. In general the floors of Chinese restaurants are really dirty. Sometimes you see that it’s clean, but under the sofas you don’t seem to see a broom or a wet cloth for weeks.
Thank God our hotels are half Chinese, half Western, so they are clean. Sometimes like Beijing, old but clean. Other times like Chengdu, it looks more like an American hotel. There is a uniformed man and woman in the lobby who hang around all day with a broom cleaning the floor.
