On June 11, 2020, Xiangxi, Hunan, aerial photograph of Eighteen Caves Village. (Visual China/Photo)
In the "precision poverty alleviation" initiative - Eighteen Caves Village, Huayuan County, Xiangxi Prefecture, Hunan Province, villagers have converted their stilt houses into farms and homestays. Large and small tour groups from all over the country often come here to visit, tour and study.
But eighteen-hole village is located in the Wuling Mountain area, if you want to get here by public transportation, you must first go to Zhangjiajie, Jishou, Huaihua or Tongren, Guizhou, Hunan, the bus station of these cities has a shuttle bus to Huayuan County; Huayuan County will have inter-village buses to Paibi Township, four times a day, passengers get off the bus halfway, walk along the winding country road for about 30 minutes, to see this village on the border between Hunan and Guizhou, has been standing still in the mountains for hundreds of years.
On November 3, 2013, when General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping inspected the Eighteen-Hole Village, he first put forward the idea of "accurate poverty alleviation". In 2012, there were 14 contiguous areas of special difficulties in China, and there were still 98.99 million rural poor people in the country. Taking the Wuling Mountain area where the Eighteen-Hole Village is located as an example, 64 of the 71 precinct counties need key assistance. The reality of remoteness, mountainousness and distance from cities, the loss of young and middle-aged labor, the huge difference in industrial structure and social public welfare resources compared with cities have become the common characteristics of "stubborn" poverty in these areas.
Since 2013, China has launched a huge poverty alleviation campaign, vowing to lift 98.99 million rural poor people out of poverty under the current standards. Eight years later, the National Poverty Alleviation Census Communiqué shows that as of December 2020, nearly 100 million rural poor people under the current standards have all been lifted out of poverty, 832 poverty-stricken counties have all been removed, and 128,000 poor villages have been listed, and regional overall poverty and absolute poverty have been eliminated.
Eighteen-hole village has also completed its transformation in this poverty alleviation battle: in February 2017, eighteen-hole village was listed in the first batch of poverty alleviation in Hunan Province; the annual per capita net income of villagers increased from 1668 yuan in 2013 to 18369 yuan in 2020; in addition to tourism, planting, agricultural products, embroidery and other industries have also been established, compared with 2013, the village collective has also increased from the annual income of zero yuan in that year to more than 2 million yuan in 2020.
Zheng Fengtian, deputy dean and professor of the College of Agriculture and Rural Development of Chinese Min University, believes that "precision" is the essence of poverty alleviation in Eighteen-Hole Village, and it has also undergone a real and major change in the spiritual outlook of poor households.
After the victory in the battle against poverty, the No. 1 document of the Central Committee in 2021 proposed to comprehensively promote rural revitalization. This is a historic shift in the focus of the "three rural areas" work.
"Eighteen-hole village has never been more vibrant than it is today." Shi Jintong, secretary of the party branch of the Eighteen-Hole Village, told Southern Weekend reporters.
<h3>Poverty alleviation precedes aspirations</h3>
At the end of April 2021, Southern Weekend reporters returned to the eighteen-hole village. When the car entered Shuanglong Town, it saw a red sign "Welcome to the Eighteen-Hole Area" erected on the side of the road. On the eve of May Day, the eighteen-hole village was full of traffic, and the teams that went to investigate and study every day were endless.
Most tourists now come to Eighteen-Hole Village, and the first stop is the museum next to the village. It displays the village's impoverished past and thriving present. After the tour, the docent will lead the team to pear village. Walking along the stone steps around the village for about half an hour – it doesn't take long for the flow of people to bring villagers a livelihood that was unimaginable in the past.
Located in The Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture of Western Hunan Province, The Eighteen-Hole Village has preserved many ancient Miao customs: wooden stilt houses, fire ponds, Miao drums, Miao doctors and Miao embroidery... The village's four villages are scattered across four adjacent hills, where the villagers have cultivated the terraces for generations. People are related to each other and multiply here, and there are more than 30 households in the least populous pear village, and the largest number of bamboo villages is only more than 100 households.
The village elderly said that because the fields can be cultivated, in the past few decades, there has been no shortage of food in the eighteen-hole village. "I don't die of hunger, but I really lack money."
Li Xiaoyun, a professor at China Agricultural University, mentioned in the book "The End of Poverty" that most of the existing poor groups are groups that have been continuously precipitated to the lowest level in the process of economic and social development. This is completely different from the widespread poverty of the 1980s, which is very difficult for these groups to lift themselves out of poverty, and it is difficult to get them out of poverty by increasing agricultural production.
Because of the lack of money, in 1995, Yang Zhenbang, a villager in eighteen-hole village, did not graduate from junior high school and decided to drop out of school to work. In order to make up the road fare, Yang Zhenbang borrowed more than 100 yuan from relatives and friends, but he did not want the car to break down halfway, and the driver let them go home and wait for the news. More than half a year passed, and Yang Zhenbang, who had not waited for the news, realized that he might have been deceived. The next year, he had saved enough money to finally leave the village and come to the city.
Also because of lack of money, Shi Jinlan, who became the director of the village committee of Hara Bamboo Village in 1999, went out to work with his wife again in 2005 after leading the villagers to build roads through the village. "Because of poverty, no girl wants to marry into the village at all." In order to make a living, all the young adults in the village left. Shi Jinlan told Southern Weekend reporters.
In 2013, the per capita net income of Eighteen-Hole Village was only 1668 yuan, which was 18.75% of the per capita net income of farmers in the country that year. Among the 939 people in 225 households in the village, there are 136 poor households and 542 people. Xi Jinping here clearly demanded that "we cannot engage in specialization, but we cannot be without changes", and the eighteen-hole village must not only get rid of poverty itself, but also explore the experience of poverty alleviation that can be copied and promoted.
In the past, poverty alleviation in the eighteen-hole village was often to send funds to the village. This "flood irrigation" poverty alleviation model also makes the villagers firmly believe that the place where the general secretary has come will definitely get a lot of money.
Shi Jinlan did not deny that he immediately decided to resign and return to his hometown after seeing the news, because "I was ready to come back to share the money, and if I did not come back, I would not share it with me", but he did not expect that the leader of the precision poverty alleviation task force was sent to Long Xiulin, deputy director of the propaganda department of the county party committee, regardless of the funds.
In January 2014, Huayuan County sent a village-based poverty alleviation team, and in May of the same year, the village committee also held a new election. In order to get rid of poverty, this village has since made various attempts: accurately identify poor households, "mutual assistance and five rejuvenation" rural grassroots governance, and choose to develop planting, tourism, embroidery handicrafts according to local conditions... But the most basic work is to do a good job in the infrastructure of the village, that is, to build roads.
The task of building roads was assigned, and the poverty alleviation team in the village helped coordinate the poverty alleviation funds and solve the cost of cement sand and other materials. However, the villagers found that the manpower and main material for road construction, the bluestone slab, all had to be solved by themselves, and the land needed for road construction had to pass through their own fields.
Located in the mountains, every flat piece of land in The Eighteen-Hole Village is precious. Long Xiulin, then the leader of the 18-hole village precision poverty alleviation task force, recalled that in order to build roads at the beginning, the contradictions between villagers even alarmed the police station. A father and son hold a wooden knife to block the construction team's progress, and the villagers who want to build the road say that they want to share the sky with the family.
In the end, Long Xiulin mediated from this conflict, and he himself found that if he wanted to help the poor, he first needed to unite people's hearts and unify his thinking. Village cadres and poverty alleviation teams then began to go door-to-door to do ideological work: signed an agreement with all villagers to cover an area of less than five minutes and unconditionally support the construction of public welfare undertakings in the village; villagers with the ability to work built their own roads, and the tasks of villagers who lost their ability to work were undertaken by the villagers' mutual aid group, and under the leadership of the village committee, the "star management of ideological and moral construction" was implemented; and the villagers were mobilized to develop industries.
"After the road is repaired, everyone's hearts are also united, and the acceptance of new things is much higher." Shi Jinlan found.
<h3>"Enclaves" are planted with kiwifruit</h3>
The development of red tourism, the adoption of the "enclave model" to rent land from other villages to grow kiwifruit, the establishment of rural cooperatives, and the construction of new mineral water factories are all new things in the eyes of villagers in the process of poverty alleviation.
After the road is built, what the eighteen-hole village needs to do is to establish the industry. Wang Sangui, dean of the China Institute of Poverty Alleviation at Chinese University, mentioned in the book "Poverty Alleviation and Precision Poverty Alleviation: Theory and Practice" that poverty alleviation in agriculture and forestry industry is the core content of winning the battle against poverty. Only by relying on the development of characteristic industries to achieve stable employment and sustained income growth can the poor fundamentally ensure effective poverty alleviation.
However, before that, the eighteen-hole village was surrounded by mountains and steep terrain, with less than 0.83 mu of arable land per capita, which was difficult to carry out large-scale development and mechanized planting. In 2014, the villagers of Eighteen Caves, village collectives and support enterprises jointly established the Eighteen-Hole Village Miao Hanzi Fruit Industry Co., Ltd., and decided to transfer 1,000 mu of land about 20 kilometers away from the village to build a kiwi fruit industrial park.
Long Shuwu, the village accountant at the time, recalled that planting wild kiwifruit was a conclusion reached by the village committee after going out to investigate, but when the villagers held a meeting, they proposed that there were many wild kiwi fruits on the surrounding mountains, and there was no need to spend money on rebuilding. In fact, Huayuan County also did the kiwifruit industry in the past few years, but because of the quality and sales, it could only be converted to production in the end.
The kiwifruit planted in the village this time comes from two new varieties provided by the Wuhan Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and at the same time, the Wuhan Botanical Garden also provides supporting planting technology for the Eighteen-Hole Village.
After receiving the seeds, the eighteen-hole village concentrated 2.34 million yuan of 939 people from 225 households in the eighteen-hole village with the state financial assistance, and the village collective also invested 600,000 yuan of the state financial support funds into the company, jointly occupying 49% of the shares. In addition, the village committee also mobilized party members and cadres to take the lead and bought the kiwi saplings planted. Long Shuwu recalled that all the money he earned from working part-time work was invested in it.
Shi Zhigang, chairman of Miao Hanzi Fruit Industry in Eighteen-Hole Village, recalled to Southern Weekend reporters that in those years when planting began, whenever the fruit was hung, the villagers collectively chartered a car to the orchard to confirm that the industry was not a "scam".
When the dividend was distributed in 2017, the village cadres decided to deliberately set up a table and place the money to be used for dividends on the table one by one, so that everyone who joined the shares would share the money. Those who did not buy shares were red at first glance, and the villagers believed that the shares of kiwi fruit could really make money.
Every year since then, eighteen-hole villages will hold a dividend meeting for kiwi fruit income gold. In 2020, this industry distributed dividends to 222 households and more than 870 people, and distributed more than 520,000 yuan in cash.
With the experience of growing kiwifruit, the current eighteen-hole village has also built a diversified industrial matrix such as mineral water factory, tourism company, catering and homestay, and meat processing.
The Eighteen-Hole Village Poverty Alleviation Task Force hopes that every village that comes to learn and exchange can get the model they want here: "If you want to do tourism, you learn how to do tourism; when you do industry, you can learn how to do industry." ”
(Liang Shuyi/Photo)
<h3>Returning villagers</h3>
In February 2017, the former Poverty Alleviation Office of Hunan Province announced that the eighteen-hole villages had successfully lifted themselves out of poverty, which was the first batch in Hunan Province.
After poverty alleviation, the development direction of Eighteen-Hole Village took the lead in shifting to rural revitalization, with the goal of "industrial prosperity, ecological livability, civilized rural style, effective governance, and affluent life".
In 2017, Yang Zhenbang, who worked in Zhejiang, decided to return to Eighteen-Hole Village. He found that the group of people who went out to work in the village at that time "came back a lot one after another."
For more than 20 years, Yang Zhenbang, along with other farmers in Huayuan County, has gone to the northeast to do engineering, dug mines in the surrounding counties of Huayuan, and later gone to Zhejiang to help people install broadband. He married a girl from the same village and had two children who had migrated with him and lived in the city.
But part-time work can't really change the fate of the family. Yang Zhenbang recalled to the Southern Weekend reporter that although there has been some income in recent years, the salary owed at the construction site, the degree of eating and wearing outside, and the personal contacts required to go home in the New Year really can't save much money.
Seeing that the development of the eighteen-hole village is getting better and better, Yang Zhenbang came up with the idea of returning to his hometown. In 2017, he returned to Eighteen-Hole Village with his family. After settling the two children in the county town to go to school, the family began to set up stalls in the square of Pear Village; slowly, the family started a farm again; in 2019, Yang Zhenbang decided to renovate the second floor of his stilt house into a homestay.
"At that time, I borrowed hundreds of thousands of dollars from relatives and friends, such a large amount of money, I was worried that I could not borrow the bank." Yang Zhenbang said.
Yang Zhenbang's homestay is located at the entrance of Pear Village, and almost every day it receives tourists who come to stay and eat. He and his wife, Aya, hung pictures of their participation in various activities over the years on the wall. You can find similar photos in every homestay and farm in The Eighteen-Hole Village.
Every morning, Yang Zhenbang will go to the town and county town to buy the dishes needed by the farm for the day, his wife Aya will handle the affairs in the store, brothers and nephews will come to help, and the old man will stay at the side of the small stall at the entrance of the village, if the farm needs, he can also go back to help at any time. The family washed vegetables, stir-fried vegetables, cleaned up the room, entertained tourists, repaired the house, and often busied themselves until late at night.
During the Southern Weekend reporter's visit to the Eighteen-Hole Village, he found that there were more than a dozen farmhouses in the whole pear village that were open, and there were more than ten newly built homestays. Residents of the surrounding villages said that with the increase of tourists, the villages where they are located have gradually had new homestays and farmhouses in the past two years.
The endless stream of tourists has also spawned the demand for souvenirs and souvenirs.
In 2014, Long Xianlan, a poor household in the village, began to learn to raise bees and produce honey with the help of the poverty alleviation team. Prior to this, Long Xianlan, like most of the young people in the village, could only rely on odd jobs to make ends meet.
After obtaining a precise poverty alleviation loan, Long Xianlan expanded the scale of his bee farm, and in that year, he achieved a net income of 100,000 yuan. With the bee farm industry, Long Xianlan married Wu Manjin of a neighboring village in the following year, and in the following years, invited 18 poor households in the village to form a cooperative.
Now, the golden orchid honey produced by the husband and wife together with the tea and miao embroidery produced in the eighteen-hole village has become a souvenir for tourists after visiting the tour.
Wu Manjin told southern weekend reporters that in addition to letting poor households in the village take shares, the "Jinlan Cooperative" also led hundreds of villagers in surrounding villages to raise bees together. "In addition to offline sales, I also hope that honey can go online, expand the scale of farming, and sell it to farther places." Wu Manjin said.
Through visits, southern weekend reporters found that some villagers in The Eighteen-Hole Village who chose to go out to work in the early years have gradually increased in recent years with their families and mouths.
A villager who also chose to return to his hometown in recent years told Southern Weekend reporters that in the past, when there was no work in the village, he could only go out to beg for a living. "The days outside are not necessarily comparable to those in the village."
In 2020, Yang Zhenbang was named the entrepreneurial star in the village. When the surrounding villagers chatted, they would often throw envious glances at him. Compared with his past experience of doing projects in the northeast to ask for wages and blasting in mines, Yang Zhenbang sighed with the Southern Weekend reporter, "At that time, people were poor to a certain extent, and they would not realize that they still had dignity." ”
<h3>The new generation in the village</h3>
Over the past eight years, the children who have witnessed the changes in the eighteen-hole village have gradually grown up.
In 2017, Shi Jinlan was transferred to the deputy general manager of the Eighteen-Hole Village Tourism Company. Before his daughter Shi Xiang graduated, she followed the school to an internship in an electronics factory in Guangdong. "The most difficult thing about the assembly line is overtime, and we still need to continue to rush at three or four o'clock at night." Shi Xiang recalled to the Southern Weekend reporter.
After graduating in 2017, Shi Xiang followed his father and became the fourth docent in the village. At the beginning, the docent had to wait on the side of the road for tourists to get off the bus and take the initiative to "pull back". "50 yuan to explain once, after the explanation they will give us the money directly." Shi Xiang said.
With the growing demand for excursions, a special tourism development company was established in the same year in the eighteen-hole village, and the docents, drivers, cleaners, and security guards were integrated. At present, there are a total of 12 docents in the tourism company, most of whom are young people of the same age as Shi Xiang in the village, and their monthly income has also changed from "pulling back" to "basic salary + commission". "Tourism is divided into light and peak seasons, but in general, we have no problem getting 3,000 yuan a month." Shi Xiang said.
Shi Jinlan mentioned to the Southern Weekend reporter that the establishment of the tourism company is also hoping to explore the corporatized operation and management model. At present, the tourism company has solved the employment of more than fifty villagers, but the publicity and operation positions required for tourism in Eighteen-Hole Village still employ professionals from other places. "The outside world pays a lot of attention to us, and we also hope to cultivate our own talents in the later stage."
After the completion of poverty alleviation in 2020, poverty alleviation areas will still be the focus of rural revitalization. Li Xiaoyun found that in the process of developing new formats in rural areas, many young people do not like to engage in traditional agricultural production. Therefore, he believes that if the countryside wants to attract today's young people, it must find what they are interested in.
With the return of young people to their hometowns, the new format has also taken shape in the Eighteen-Hole Village.
After 2013, more than 20 college students have successively come out of the eighteen-hole village. In 2021, the two village committees will be replaced, and 80% of the new members of the village two committees will have a college degree or above.
Born in 1996, Shi Linjiao was the first college student in the village to return to her hometown to start a business. In 2015, Shi Linjiao took the college entrance examination, but when the family changed, the family's income was cut off, and the village provided her family with various preferential policies to support the poor households. Relying on state student loans, Shi Linjiao's four siblings were able to continue their studies. After graduating from university in 2019, Shi Linjiao first stayed in a company in Changsha, and during the epidemic in 2020, she began to do live broadcasts with two peers in the village, accumulating a group of fans in a short period of time and becoming an "Internet celebrity with goods".
In the shot, Shi Linjiao will always wear the seedling clothes left by her grandmother, cut bacon, carry firewood, plant seedlings, and sing Miao songs... In May 2020, she began helping villagers sell bacon, eggs, honey and other agricultural products in the live broadcast room. The new attempt was immediately supported by the village. "The hottest live broadcast has more than 100,000 hits at a time, and a live broadcast with goods has sold for more than 80,000 yuan." Shi Linjiao said.
After the epidemic, Shi Linjiao decided to stay in the village and accompany her grandfather while continuing to explore short videos and live broadcasts. She told the Southern Weekend reporter that as the first college student to return to her hometown to start a business, she has experienced continuous exploration in terms of account revenue, live broadcast cycle, product promotion, and model transformation for more than a year. She values the development opportunities of the village. "When the outside world turns resources and eyes on us, the more we try, the more opportunities we get."
(Southern Weekend intern Pei Yuli also contributed)
Resources:
"Eighteen Stories of Eighteen-Hole Village" by Li Di
"The End of Poverty" by Li Xiaoyun
"Poverty Alleviation and Targeted Poverty Alleviation: Theory and Practice" by Wang Sangui
"Report on the Development of China's Contiguous Special Hardship Areas (2014-2015)" by You Jun, Leng Zhiming and Ding Jianjun
Southern Weekend reporter Wang Xuqiulin