White Collar Against Urban Tendency: Return To Rural Areas

Artist Ning Ning flew all the way in April, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing and Chengdu.

In order to popularize the literary bimonthly "Tian Nan" edited by him, he made speeches everywhere, but the theme of the speech was more focused on farmers, agriculture and rural areas, focusing on the practice of rural construction of Asian intellectuals.

In the first phase of "Tian Nan", he used more than 2/3 space and 120 page numbers to focus on the countryside, and at the same time he had a strong sense of social involvement.

He said that this was a general outbreak that he had accumulated over the past five years, and that the process of editing "Asia's hometown" was also an arrangement for him to observe and ponder over the issue of rural construction.

He tried to look at the "rice eating nation" of Asia as a whole, and to convey the spirit of "action" to the people who are still concerned about literature in this era.

So in the "Tian Nan", Alan, Dati, is the author of "the God of tiny things".

Roy's interpretation of the anti reservoir, cries for rivers and villages in India; documentary researcher Xiong Qi explores the relationship between the late director Ogawa Shinsuke and the Japanese countryside; he wrote and wrote the utopian art experiment in Thailand village; the author of "where the rivers and lakes are", Wu Yinning looks back at the vicissitudes of the Taiwan countryside.

One of the most important articles, "action in the earth", was caused by the analysis of Liang village in his hometown village last year.

From a literary magazine, the history of rural construction in the past hundred years has returned to public view.

This is like an accident. It is also inevitable.

Over the past decade, over speed and over development have caused many people to have a tendency to "reverse city", but the living space in rural areas has been squeezed smaller and smaller by the urbanization process, and traditional life has become increasingly destitute. People need to find the way to return.

Aggravate a lonely straw in the homeland

Although he carried a satchel with "two words" for farming, he could not see a trace of "farmer's children".

Born in the next six towns in Suixi County of Guangdong Province in 1969, he described his growth as a process of "eliminating roots".

Recollection of the experience of farming in his youth only pushed him farther and farther away from the countryside. "Every summer vacation, I have to go home to help a worker. Once I was burned in the field by planting rice seedlings in the fields for a long time, and my eyes could not be seen at night when I stopped working.

I don't like this kind of life. I'm determined to change through school. "

In 1988, to the University of Shenzhen, China's most advanced city, it became more connected with the wider world because of the cross border identity of curators and artists.

But now, he wants to "find the roots": "at this point in the countryside, it is entirely against the tide to choose the life that most people are eager to discard, but my thoughts are getting stronger and stronger."

The direct touch is the biennial exhibition of urban architecture in Shenzhen in 2005. Xie Yingjun, an architect in Taiwan, introduced his idea of promoting ecological architecture and building houses in the countryside, and let him first notice this name: Yan Yang Chu.

Yan Yangchu, who was born in 1890, is known as "the father of civilian education". He pioneered the rural construction movement. In 1943, he was recognized by Einstein, Dewey and others as one of the ten most great contributions in the modern world.

The master graduate of Princeton University, who was riding a donkey in 1920s, took his family members and his "China Association for the promotion of civilian education". He moved to Zhai Cheng village, Ding County, Hebei, and became a farmer with the peasants. He began a ten year rural experiment in Ding County, and was forced to stop until the outbreak of the war of resistance against Japan.

Yan Yangchu classified China's rural problems as the four ends of "stupid, poor, weak and private". First, he taught peasants to read, then treated them with literature, livelihood, health and citizen's "four major education", and trained knowledge, productivity, strength and solidarity to create "new people".

He hoped to improve the quality of the civilian population, especially the quality of the peasants, so as to achieve the goal of saving the nation by a powerful nation.

Read "Yan Yang Chu biography", Ou Ning's admiration.

He has always been concerned about the reality of society. He recalled his feelings when he was doing a survey in the city of Guangzhou and filming the documentary "Sanyuanli": "many of the slums in the cities are the gathering place of migrant workers. Many urban problems are traced back to the countryside to find answers."

Over urbanization has become a kind of planning "violence", which is increasingly squeezing the rural living space. Ou Ning looks back on his hometown and finds that like most of the rural areas in China, people go to the surface of the earth and face the edge of bankruptcy.

The "fleeing" of their native land, which had once strives for the best, seems to have become a straw that aggravates the isolation of the homeland.

Is there a path that can go back?

When the countryside is increasingly regarded as the obstacle and focus of modern development, its survival mode and cultural structure are increasingly facing the challenge of being disintegrated and distorted.

He especially appreciated the two ideas put forward by the rural construction Pioneer: the rural construction work should be carried out on the basis of farmers' existence, and intellectuals should go to rural areas to carry out rural construction instead of putting their ideas firmly in the hands of farmers.

"It's too much."

Ning told the times weekly reporter that there are many people who care about the countryside, but most of them consciously regard themselves as givers. "Charity causes people to rely on them, but it does not stimulate the subjectivity of the peasants. Instead, it may make farmers less confident."

In his opinion, farmers without self-confidence will doubted their way of existence and constantly be brainwashed by mainstream values. The traditional wisdom accumulated by thousands of years of agricultural production in China has been quickly abandoned.

Since then, he has shifted his interest to agriculture, rural areas and farmers.

Let crops, grass and insects grow together.

In December 2009, he went to visit Zhai Cheng village, Ding County, Hebei. It was not only a base for Yan Yangchu's mass education in 1930s, but also experienced a modern rural construction experiment which inherited Yan Yangchu's idea recently.

In 2003, Qiu Jiansheng, one of the important initiators of the contemporary rural construction movement, proposed the establishment of "Yan Yang Chu village construction college" at the former site of the Ping Yuan agricultural experimental site in Zhai city village.

This idea has been actively responded to by Wen Tiejun, the dean of the school of agriculture and rural development of Renmin University of China, and other scholars who have long paid attention to the "three rural issues" and the practice of rural construction.

The college has "free admission for laborers", and has organized training seminars, forums and seminars on the issues concerning agriculture, rural areas and farmers, attracting thousands of peasants, rural cadres and young intellectuals in all parts of the country.

The Institute encourages farmers to carry out cooperative experiments, and for the first time attempts to link rural production cooperatives with consumer cooperatives established in cities to achieve urban rural interaction.

Outside the courtyard wall of the college is an experimental plot of organic cultivation.

No fertilizer, no weeds, crops, grass and insects.

This is the way to restore the natural biological chain and restore the healthy land. Pesticides and fertilizers cause serious pollution to the rural areas. According to the tests, the pollution degree of the soil planted in the countryside has exceeded 100 times the normal standard, and it will take at least three years to repurify it.

However, "Yan Yang Chu village construction college" has just been forced to close after three years, and the restored land has entered the cycle of pollution again.

The village of Zhai, which was seen by Ou Ning, looked desolate and bleak under the winter in North China. The excitement of a few years ago has ceased to exist.

The school buildings of Yan Yang Chu Township college have long been converted into kindergartens, and the college playground is full of weeds.

Xie Yingjun gathered here to build two new eco houses.

Only a slogan "building the countryside and developing the people's power" at the gate of the school reminds people of the past movement of the rural construction movement.

But we still have some harvest.

He lived in the house of Jin Mu, a deputy secretary, and found that the wives of MI Jin Mu's wife, Chen Yanfen and Zhai city women, had said "green agriculture", "left behind children" and "multiculturalism" after dinner.

Although Chen Yanfen is only more than 60 years old, he graduated from junior high school, but his bed is full of works by Yan Yang and Wen tie Jun. He often surf the Internet to learn new knowledge. When she tried to teach her to use Sina micro-blog, she was amazed by her understanding speed.

Although the rural construction college has been closed, its influence on Zhai city village is endless.

This is the result of the development of the people's power. "

He wrote down this feeling in his diary.

Looking for the successor of Yan Yang Road

After a year, when "Tian Nan" began to prepare, he chose the theme of "Asian homeland", and he decided to go further into contemporary rural construction practitioners.

Because of the shock of China in Liang Zhuang, he thought of asking Liang Honglai to take part in this investigation.

When Liang Hong received a call from a stranger, Ou Ning, he was first moved by the title of "Asian homeland": "he did not use such words as rural areas or villages, but directly spoke of his hometown, which evoked the most original emotions.

Most of the time we feel about the village as a real problem, but when he calls it "Hometown", I feel, alas, is related to our emotions and is closely related to our lives.

Ou Ning and Liang Hong first went to Futian, Anxi, Fujian, which is Qiu Jiansheng's newest base.

After the closure of Yan Yang Chu village College of construction, Qiu Jiansheng was pferred to Hainan and Fujian.

He has set up the home of the national Ren, the Futian cultural center and the Pei Tian Community College, and now he is faced with the dilemma of financial interruption. His projects or efforts have been maintained or stalled, closed or just started.

But he himself thinks, "the worst is over, and there is room for it as long as we are still doing it".

Qiu Jiansheng's hardship and optimism impressed Liang Hong: "I never thought that such a person has been doing all kinds of things in rural China for so many years, but he has been unable to solve his own life."

Liang Hongyong described the dilemma faced by a purely civil rural promoter such as Qiu Jiansheng, which was also faced by Yan Yangchu in 1920 and 1930s.

At the time of the most embarrassing domestic economy, he even went to the United States to collect donations so as to maintain the operation of the "Federation of civilian education".

"Today we talk about the rural construction movement of Yan Yang Chu, which may have beautified and fantasies about his situation at that time.

Actually, I think he faces many social dilemmas just like now.

Liang Hong also confirmed her judgement in the contact with another rural construction practitioner, He Huili.

He Huili, who is a scholar and an official, has two identities. She graduated from Peking University and taught at China Agricultural University. He went to Lankao in Henan as deputy county magistrate from 2003 and entered the grass-roots government framework. She tried to mobilize the official power to push forward the rural construction movement. This made her an alternative "wild road" in the esteem of the people and independent part of the rural construction intellectuals.

In 2005, He Huili was famous for organizing farmers to go to Beijing to promote pollution-free rice. This has made the topic of contemporary rural construction a hot topic in the media for a certain period of time.

She did a great job in Lankao's agricultural cooperatives, organized in the village as a unit, and gradually implemented the "urban rural interaction" linking the rural production cooperatives with the urban consumer groups. After selling rice to Beijing, they also led cooperative farmers to promote the ecological feeding of healthy pork in Zhengzhou.

She has a high profile, unlike other rural intellectuals who keep distance from the government and officialdom. "I don't want to exclude leaders in my rural construction.

It is very important for intellectuals to intervene in politics and cooperate with the government. "

He Huili said to Liang Hong.

However, Liang Hong still observed the entanglements and contradictions in He Huili's dealings with officialdom. On the one hand, she was trying to overcome the high level of her intellectuals, and on the other hand, the greater pressure came from the intellectuals.

"In officialdom, she is a ridiculous alternative. At school, some people say she is like a cadre, but in the common people, she is an intellectual.

Because where did she become an official and soak in the village every day?

She hangs the position of the Standing Committee of the county, but she does not receive wages, does not seek official career, and wholeheartedly does rural construction. She also works hard with leaders and cadres in various industries, because she wants every aspect of society to play a proper role in rural construction.

Liang Hong felt sympathy for He Huili's predicament.

"In the review and Prospect of the mass education movement", Yan Yangchu said that engaging in the rural construction movement must be "academic politicization" and learn to deal with officials.

Why does he emphasize this?

The scholars themselves are very tall and unwilling to deal with politics, but Yan Yangchu also finds that it is necessary to enter the political level to make sure that your measures and systems are really carried out. This actually means that they have encountered many obstacles at the time, and many people do not understand it and do not support it.

Facing the times weekly reporter, Liang Hong once again compared the situation of rural construction this evening.

Don't be vigilant "petty bourgeoisie"

Ten kilometers away from Lankao, the two Mile Village cooperative in the Yellow River's old road, Ou Ning and Liang Hong were cried by what they saw.

The students from the Three Rural Development Research Association of Henan University are teaching there. Such a team of university students is the main force in building the countryside, and is also a sign of hope and strength for the development of the rural construction movement in the future.

In the cold and cold weather, students lay in a damp and permeable cottage, laying a layer of straw under the thin mattress, cooking with bricks and cooking stove, eating Chinese cabbage, dry noodles or steamed bread - too many steamed bread in the pot, and the lid of the pot is warped up, so pressing two bricks on the lid of the pot.

He did not deny that he was inconsistent with the life of this "ascetic monk", which was "too cruel for students".

At the same time, he also disagrees with the students' too much emphasis on Discipline Training: they collect and run six kilometers every morning, sing red songs, and hold meetings.

"Rural construction work should be happy."

He said.

He feared that if the process of rural construction was just poor and cruel, sooner or later, the young people's enthusiasm would be eroded.

"I feel that the intellectuals of rural construction seem to have a kind of" cleanliness ". They are very vigilant about petty bourgeoisie. Nowadays, many white-collar workers who are" anti city "tend to look for another way of life in the countryside, but people from rural areas are very resistant to them.

Rather, he sees this as another kind of self sealing. "Rural construction should be open to all social forces."

He wanted to try another way to intervene in the countryside: the "Utopia" of a country living together with the power of literature and art.

He has chosen the village of Bishan, Yixian County, Anhui as the base of the experiment, and the "Bishan community" plan will begin with a "ideal country" painted on the notebook and grafted with the real rural community.

The idea of Enning is to set up a database through the census of the rural cultural resources and traditional crafts through the local culture bureau first.

For example, the carpentry in Huizhou is very good, so we can find out the contact ways of every village skillful craftsman, collect the information of Huangmei Opera Club, genealogy, traditional musical instruments and ancient production mode.

Then, he will mobilize all kinds of resources in his own literature, art, design, architecture and music to go to Bishan to further research, submit proposals, combine existing folk crafts with contemporary ideas, and develop products that can co-operate with farmers.

"For example, furniture designers work with local carpenters to design new furniture with local materials and display them in the August" Bishan harvest festival ".

If you like, you can allow local farmers to start their own businesses and mass production. We help them build sales channels in cities.

Integrating foreign and local intelligence power into a productive force.

He hopes that with this model, job opportunities can be created in rural areas, "young people who go out to work can come back, and in the big cities, white collar and middle class who are anti urbanization tend to turn to rural areas to find jobs."

During the harvest festival, there will be poetry lessons for children in rural areas. The classroom is located in the old ancestral hall of Bishan village. "I want to re activate the public life in rural areas."

Liang Hong confessed to the reservation of the plan of "Ning Ning": "it may be more meaningful to the white-collar and middle class in the city, but how it will affect the life of the local peasants is not easy to say."

He also believes that he will understand the problems and difficulties when he is in touch with local farmers.

He will strictly select partners who go with him to mount Bishan: "we must put an end to their romantic dreams of country life."

He said, "we have said enough enough to act."