Hangzhou, beautiful rice fields — Oct, 23 and 24
Monotonous trip about three and a half hours. Extensive rice and soy plantations. The huge, mature rice fields already reaching the harvest point are beautiful. Numerous waterways, usually canals, often navigable.
Fresh day, cloudy. Another train crosses with ours. Looks like retreats. Wagons filled with people leaning out the windows, sometimes almost half their bodies out, others leaning over the little tables between the two benches, sleeping. Bad impression because the train is dirty and the people seem to have no resources.
Lian got hungry, luckily she had a pear and cheese in her bag.
Arrival in Hangzhou: two waiting for us, one speaks English (young), the old one no, only Chinese. Suburban hotel in the middle of a park. Beautiful place. Rest, bath, dine with a local government leader and others. He said that as a young man he came from the camp to the upper level school in the city, leaving parents and five brothers and sisters. At 17 he had to go back because he was the oldest to help the family. Today he is back in town, but at that time the family wrote asking for money, clothes and food. Today the brothers write asking for color TV, good clothes, the best quality scissors without asking the price. They have money to pay. He who is in the city and works for the government cannot do this. The peasants can. “They earn very well. This is because of the revolution, that is, work for building responsibility. ”
They served us “beggar’s chicken”: a beggar went down the road and found a chicken and killed it but had no pan. He wrapped it in lotus leaves, barred it and placed it in the middle of the coal The emperor was passing by and found the smell so good that he asked what it was. The beggar served him the chicken and he liked it so much that from then on he only ate “chicken a la beggar”! (Needs four hours to bake). Really delicious. We eat lotus seeds in a sweet broth, very tasty and also roasted turtle.
After dinner with two or three toasts of strong wine they gave us gifts: a box of Chinese dolls and books.
I bought mini pearl necklace and wooden corncob.
Shang Feng Tea Village — Hangzhou suburb
October 24, 1986
866 inhabitants and 283 families.
30 hectares of tea plantation where it is home to the famous Dragon Well Tea of over a thousand years. Harvest from April to October. There are 16 qualities, the best is harvested in April. Four characters: green color, pleasant smell, taste and softness. It is good for digestion.
Before 280 Pounds / Today 2,300 Pounds.
1978 was 450,000 yuan / 1985 was 2,200 million yuan.
20% tea and the rest is industry and hotels.
In 1978, each family received 860 yuan, seven years later, in 1985, received 2,890 yuan. Schools, kindergarten, rest home, retirement (receive 60% of salary). Each family has just over 2 Mus (a 1/15 acre Muequivale, ie 650 m²) for tea, in rice is more.
4% tax on tea production: 80% is sold to the state and the remaining 16% can be sold to anyone. The village budget is the profit of the industries and hotels. Rice tax is 3% of production. In this region the tax is decided on species of production. Only eight hectares of rice. Seven hectares are divided by families to grow their vegetables. More than 200 hectares of mountain forests.
Bearing factory, truck repair shop and wall paint.
The families themselves prepare the tea leaves. The average price is 20 yuan a kilo, top quality tea can reach up to 120 yuan a kilo, the worst costs 7 yuan. Each family with more than two mus tea can receive more than 3,000 yuan a year. A good tea tree produces up to 750 grams / year. Pan at 80 degrees takes 15 minutes to dry ½ pound of tea. Jasmine tea is made by adding jasmine flower to the tea leaves and when drying in the pan the leaves absorb the aroma of jasmine.
After lunch visit the Silk Factory founded in 1966–5,800 workers, 5% women, largest silk factory in the country.
Divided into three sectors. Production of 20 thousand meters of silk, 50% for export. 70% of pure silk production and the rest of other fabrics. It has kindergarten, dormitories, medical center, sports area, elementary school.
Very old machinery, exterior full of debris. Grumpy directress.
Cooperative Farm (Red Mountain)
Producer farm, not from the government, is a cooperative. 3,500 inhabitants, 995 families and 480 hectares. There are 23 different factories. In 1985 production yielded a total of 56.690 million yuan. Commercial, agriculture and industry. Before 1969 only sea salt mine (it is 3 km from the beach). Later the government consented to the move to farm. They produce rice, soy, cotton, sugarcane, vegetables, etc.
We had for lunch tortoise, crab, chicken, duck, shrimp, fish and tofu, rice and vegetables. Tsingtao beer.
It is a model farm that has become a small village. It was a poor farm and since 1978 has changed the agricultural policy by getting richer. They had seven to eight tons / hectare of rice and 700kg / hectare of cotton. Today 13 to 14 tons of rice / hectare and 1,300 kg / hectare of cotton. They had no industries in 1975. In 1978 some. Agricultural production before 1978 was 2 million yuan and today it is 50 million yuan. The peasants were poor because they could not grow cotton, for example. In 1978 a peasant earned 200 yuan / year and in 1984 earned 800 yuan / year.
Before 1978 they had no technology or agricultural knowledge. Today it has technological and agricultural aid, which has increased production twice. Getting richer made more houses for peasants, free education for children and prize system ranging from one thousand to five thousand yuan.
Retirement system; men aged 60 and women aged 55.
Men at the age of 60 retire compulsorily and women at 55. If they work for the government or in some industry, they should give way to younger people. If they are people of culture they can be teachers, they can give conferences, they can be counselors of organizations, etc. Otherwise, as in the case of the peasants, retirees take care of the house and grandchildren while the others work. They take their grandchildren to school, make food and clean the house.
10% only work in agriculture, the rest agriculture and factories (cement factory, marble factory, machine parts, textile, tractors, agricultural products, etc.).
Average amount of land per peasant: two hectares. If the farmer has more capacity, he can ask for more land where he will work with wage earners, paying five to ten yuan a day on about 20 hectares.
The farm belonged to about 700 families. Today more than 900 families have come together to found this agricultural cooperative. When it is state-owned, all profit belongs to the state. Cooperative pays land tax and the rest goes to the fund of the association and to the families. Each hectare pays 120 yuan / year. Workers come from other poorer villages to work as wage earners on the land here because there is less land per inhabitant there.
After lunch, raining, we return to the city. Shopping at Friendship House. Dinner at the hotel and departure to the train station. We left by express train to Shanghai where we arrived at 11:30 pm.
In Hangzhou and Shanghai restaurants they do not put a bottle of beer on the table. They go with the unlabeled dark green bottle from table to table, filling the cups like water all through the meal. They try to keep the glasses always full.
On the way back from Hangzhou to Shanghai we went to another newer, smaller hotel. But the bathtub is grubby with rust, the water in the tap smells strongly of rust and, says Lian, that coffee also smells of rust. They serve us warm milk that we put Nescafe we bought. Omelet or fried egg served in breakfast. But there is no fruit juice except canned ones. HAIHON HOTEL.
