September, the harvest season. Industrialization has changed the way farming has been practiced for thousands of years, and the scene of combine harvesters driving over flat land and grain pouring down like a waterfall at the exit of the machine has become an impression of a bumper harvest. However, in the mountains and rivers that have not yet been covered by industrialization, the most primitive agricultural models can still be found, where people slash and burn, work hard, and harvest with their hands and backs. Some of these scenes, today, are known as "agricultural cultural heritage".
On the eve of the 2021 Chinese Farmers' Harvest Festival, a reporter from the Beijing News visited the harvest site of the Hani Terraces in Yunnan. There are villages under the forest, fields under the villages, and clouds in the fields, where there are wonders of human agricultural history that have been inherited for thousands of years, and it is also the first batch of "globally important agricultural cultural heritage" recognized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, covering 820,000 mu of terraces in 4 counties and 12 townships. Compared with the automated large machines, the harvest of Hani farmers is particularly hard and precious.
Hani Rice Terraces harvest. Beijing News reporter Zhou Huaizong filmed and produced
Terraces on the clouds, autumn harvests with horses on their backs
On the morning of September 17, in The village of Zhenkou in Xinjie Town, Yuanyang County, Honghe Prefecture, Yunnan Province, several villagers squatted in a shed at the intersection of Xiashan Road to avoid the rain, with sickles, woven bags, ropes and fish baskets at their feet. The rain wasn't too big, but it was sudden, breaking the rhythm of their harvest.
Another person walked through the shed, the footsteps did not stop, braving the rain to go to the field, the relatives and friends he invited to help harvest rice had gathered, could not wait long, the next family was still waiting.
Zhenkou Village is a single Hani gathering village, located in the south of Ailao Mountain, the prototype of the village can be traced back to about 1000 AD, which is also the early stage of the formation of the Hani terraced civilization.
On September 17, the Hani Rice Terraces awaiting harvest. Beijing News reporter Zhou Huaizong photographed
Zhenkou Village has the characteristics of a typical terraced civilization, the village is built in the middle of the mountain, above the village, is a dense mountain forest, the forest of abundant water system, meandering along the hillside, through the village, watering the layers of terraces extending to the foot of the mountain, and finally merging into the valley.
A small square on the cliff side of the village is a place for the villagers to relax, and can also be used as an observation deck, looking down, the dark green weeds on the edge of the terraces divide the golden yellow rice into small pieces, and the terraces extend down layer by layer, all the way to the valley sea of clouds.
There are villages under the forest, there are fields under the villages, and below the fields, there is a sea of clouds that are endlessly changing, as if the terraces are built on the clouds. There are small terraces after harvesting, and in the reflection of water and light, there are also clouds swaying and fluttering.
Overlooking the people working in the terraces. Beijing News reporter Zhou Huaizong photographed
People who had just braved the rain had already walked to their own terraces, and when they looked down from a distance, they could only see a few small gray-black dots, slowly moving in the fields. In fact, their speed is not slow, several people or even more than a dozen people lined up, bending down and waving their scythes, and the mature rice was cut down by rows and threshed in the field.
The mounds on the terraces are narrow, and the mountain roads are steep and winding, and they cannot be passed by cars, tricycles, or bicycles. The threshed rice can only be transported home by means of horses or people's backs.
After harvest, villagers manually carry rice. Beijing News reporter Zhou Huaizong photographed
The rain did not stop, the people harvesting rice in the fields had already harvested, and at the junction of the downhills, someone returned, carrying a woven bag full of rice, a rope in a circle, on one side of the grain bag, and on the other side sewn with a wide cloth belt, draped over the forehead. The man carrying the rice on his back bowed his head and bent over, slowly moving up the slippery mountain road step by step.
Lintian village water, the wonder of a thousand years of agricultural civilization
For thousands of years, the people of the Hani tribe have continued this mode of production. Studies show that about 1300 years ago, the ancestors of the Hani people migrated to the Ailao Mountain Generation, built a home in the mountains and forests, and reclaimed terraces layer by layer on the rolling slopes, creating a spectacle in the history of human agriculture in a thousand years.
The Hani Rice Terraces, a spectacle in the history of human agriculture. Beijing News reporter Zhou Huaizong photographed
A local worker engaged in the protection of Hani rice terrace culture told reporters that the Hani people have a long history of farming, and have accumulated many precious traditional farming experiences in the millennium inheritance, which have formed a set of traditional ecological development models around the terrace system.
"From the top of the mountain to the valley, the top is the forest, followed by the village, and then the terraces that have been extending down, and through the three, is the water flowing down from the top of the mountain, which nourishes the forest, supplies people and livestock, irrigates the terraces, and finally forms the agricultural system of Hani Terraces Forest, Village, Terrace, Water System, Isomorphism, Circular Ecology," Cui Yin, deputy director of the local Terrace Management Committee, said in an interview with the Beijing News reporter.
The formation of this model is related to the special geographical environment of Ailao Mountain. According to the information displayed by the museum, the Hani Rice Terraces are located in a deep-cut mountainous area with deep valleys in the subtropical mountains, with altitudes ranging from 144 meters to 2939.6 meters. In the altitude difference of more than 2,000 meters, the hot air of the valley rises, forming clouds and precipitation at the top of the mountain, nourishing the dense forest and forming a rich water system, and the water in these forests continuously flows from the top of the mountain to the valley all year round, providing the most basic conditions for rice cultivation.
The place where Choi Yin works is in the Hani Rice Terrace Museum, not far from the village of Hoguchi, which is not in the city, but is built at the junction of hillside terraces and forests.
This is also the model of site selection and construction of all Hani villages, in the long history, the Hani people in the bottom of the mountaintop forest, looking for a relatively flat, and sufficient water source, built a large number of villages, and rely on the village, reclaimed countless terraces, and then introduced the flowing water on the mountain, irrigating the terraces, the wild mountains, into a fertile field to nourish future generations.
Fertile land reclaimed in the mountains. Beijing News reporter Zhou Huaizong photographed
Such a spectacle, placed on the whole world, is also a miracle. In June 2010, the Hani Rice Terraces were recognized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations as the first batch of "Globally Important Agricultural Cultural Heritage", and in June 2013, the Hani Rice Terraces were inscribed on the World Heritage List, becoming the 45th World Heritage Site in China.
It's a huge legacy. The scope of protection of the "Globally Important Agricultural Cultural Heritage" alone includes 12 townships in 4 counties, including Yuanyang County, Luchun County, Honghe County and Jinping County in Honghe Prefecture, with a total area of about 820,000 mu of terraces. Among them, Yuanyang County has about 190,000 mu, in addition, some places that are not included in the protected area also retain a large number of terraces.
Terraced labor, produced in the most traditional way
Near noon, the wind and rain stopped, the sun shone brightly, and the terraces on the surrounding mountains were all golden yellow rays of rice.
Li Youhua, 61, wearing a narrow-brimmed hat, waterproof rain pants with a strap and carrying threshing tools, came out of his home and walked down the mountain road, along with his wife and three relatives.
Li Youhua stood in the middle of a golden rice field. Beijing News reporter Zhou Huaizong photographed
Three relatives are here to help, and there are still traditional customs here, and when they are busy farming, several relatives work together to help each other and cooperate to complete the autumn harvest in the fastest time.
In the terraced fields with an altitude difference of more than 2,000 meters, the time of rice ripening is not the same, which provides a good foundation for the villagers to help each other and cooperate, and several families unite to harvest from the bottom of the mountain to the mountain, and each family will not miss the season.
Among the three people who came to help were the sister and brother-in-law of Li Youhua's wife, who lived in another village and had been working together for many years to cultivate the land, from ploughing the fields in March and April to harvesting in September.
There is also a division of labor among people who work cooperatively, the main people who cut the rice are women, the threshing is mainly men, the threshing machine is a simple agricultural tool composed of three parts, and a shallow rectangular box at the bottom, and two inclined baffles are placed on both sides of the box.
The person cutting the rice in front puts the cut rice in bundles on the finished rice stubble, and the man in the back, picking up the rice bundle, slammed it in the box with force, and the ripe rice splashed, blocked by the baffle, and fell into the box. Locals call harvesting rice "threshing", which may be the origin of this.
People who beat the thresh. Beijing News reporter Zhou Huaizong photographed
Li Youhua and his brother-in-law Li Zhenyuan shared a threshing machine, and the two men stood at both ends of the rectangular box and hit the "grain spike" at the same time, and soon the box was full. At the same time, the hats, faces, arms, and clothes of the two men were splashed with mud spots.
After playing a short distance of rice, Li Youhua will push the threshing machine forward, the bottom surface of the threshing machine is smooth, you can slide on the mud after drying the water, but people can not slide, one foot down, the legs will fall into the knee-deep mud.
Rice yellow fish fat, people who coexist with nature
Not far from Li Youhua's rice paddies, another family is also threshing, a little more people here, close to 10 people, 4 men with two threshing machines, faster. In half an afternoon, a long terrace was harvested, and woven bags filled with rice were driven up the hill by horses, and the people who beat the grain were then transferred to the next piece of land.
The beaten grain is carried away by horse. Beijing News reporter Zhou Huaizong photographed
The 62-year-old Lu Changsheng sat resting on the mound, harvesting not his rice paddies, but his nephews, who worked in the fields, mostly to help.
Not far away, on the field mound, there was a fish basket, which had already filled half a basket of fish. These fish are planted and stocked in rice fields, this rice-fish symbiosis model, can be seen everywhere in the Hani Rice Terraces, because there is no pesticide, no chemical fertilizer, so the terrace water is very suitable for fish farming.
The people who found the fish were the people who cut the rice in front of them, and after a while, someone shouted, "Come and get the fish." The people who beat the grain in the rear temporarily stopped, picked up the fish basket placed in the canal or puddle by the field, stepped on the mud to the front, loaded the fish, and then put it back into the water, after a day's work, these fish are still alive, take it home, and at night, there will be an extra "rice flower fish".
Fish in rice paddies, which feed on insects in the water, have certain benefits for the control of rice insect pests. But also because it is not fed, the yield is not high, the fish are generally not large, the largest has one or two pounds, and more is only the size of the palm.
Children pick up rice and fish. Beijing News reporter Zhou Huaizong photographed
Such rice and fish are very popular outside, and when they are most expensive, they can be sold for sixty or seventy yuan per kilogram, but because of the low yield, there are not many exports.
Li Youhua did not plan to sell these rice flowers and fish, he was ready to keep them for himself. Li Youhua has two sons, both working outside, leaving 4 grandchildren who went to school, cared for by Li Youhua and his wife, these fish, grandchildren and 6 people, in fact, can not eat for long.
Lintian village water, alpine wonders, rice-fish symbiosis... Li Youhua, they did not understand these words, or had heard of them, but had not thought about their meaning.
Li He, a researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who once inspected and investigated the local terraced culture in Yuanyang, told reporters, "In the local area, the Hani people have built a complete set of lifestyles, production orders, festivals and customs in the rice terrace agricultural production, and until today, they have maintained cultural continuity. To the beholder, this is a precious cultural heritage, but for them, these productive lifestyles, these ritual cultures, are their lives themselves. ”
The people who cultivate the fields in the "heritage" have been slowly getting older
In fact, not everyone is still continuing the traditional life, and the tide of modernization is also affecting people in the deep mountains and terraces.
Down the mountain road in Hokokuchi Village, in the terraces on both sides of the road, most of the people who beat the grain are old people, and they rarely see young people. Basically, like Li Youhua's two sons, they worked outside the home and did not return. Lu Changsheng told reporters that young people basically do not cultivate land and will not plant. Even Lu Changsheng himself has worked outside the home and has only returned to his hometown in recent years.
Li Hua, 36, is one of the very few young people who returned to his hometown for the autumn harvest. Li Hua and her husband have been working outside the home, and their two children are also in the city. There were only in-laws in the family, because they were too old to work in the fields, so they had to come back to beat the grain. But Li Hua was the only one who returned, and her husband and children remained in the city.
Li Hua's rice was harvested two days ago, and unlike Li Youhua, Li Hua did not ask relatives for help, because she wanted to continue to return to the city to work and could not help her relatives. But Li Hua also has his own method, hiring people.
People harvesting rice in the fields. Beijing News reporter Zhou Huaizong photographed
Hire a person to beat the grain, about 100-120 yuan a day, if you manage the rice, the price is a little lower. Such a market, in the endless mountains and terraces, has appeared for a long time, and more and more people choose this way. Compared with the way of cooperation and help, taking money to hire people is simpler and more direct, and it is undoubtedly the most economical for people who go out to work.
Ma Wei, 27, also chose to hire someone. Ma Wei's family is only him and his mother, Ma Wei has been working in Shenzhen before, and this year he had an operation, so he rested at home. Mother alone, it is almost impossible to bear the labor intensity of farming, especially the autumn harvest. Ma Wei told reporters that not only can people be hired to harvest, but also horses that drive rice up the mountain can also be hired, according to the bag, about 10 yuan per bag.
At about 4 p.m., ma wei's terraced fields were finished, the hired people left, his mother and another relative who came to help carried rice up the mountain, Ma Wei could not do heavy work, just helped to carry a sickle and a fish basket up the mountain, the sneakers on his feet were clean and white, and there was almost no mud on the pink coat and black pants.
"Over the years, we have taken many measures to protect the Hani Rice Terraces and protect their agricultural culture, including the protection of forest ecology, the repair and maintenance of Hani villages, and the maintenance of mountains, forests, and water systems, and have indeed achieved very good results." But Cui Yin also said that the protection of the Hani Rice Terraces is also facing the aging of the agricultural labor force, with more young people going out to work, and fewer and fewer people who are willing to work and will farm.
The continuation of the legacy requires external help
Someone is trying to change. In a local grain processing plant, the person in charge told reporters that they bought the unique red rice in the Hani Rice Terraces and processed it into terraced specialties, which can help farmers get more income, at the same time, they are also trying to establish their own production bases in the form of order agriculture, guide farmers to produce, and help farmers sell grain at better prices. But even that doesn't really attract more young people. The farmers in their base, or those who accept their orders for planting, are also mostly elderly.
"People naturally pursue a better, richer life. With the development of society, the proportion of agriculture in the national economy is getting lower and lower, if there is no additional income, agriculture itself, can not provide a rich life for rural residents, can not bear the cost of improving rural public facilities, hani terraces such agricultural heritage, indeed retain rich cultural resources, to maintain cultural diversity has made outstanding contributions, but also to see that hard work, has been disproportionate income, more and more difficult to attract people to stay, force them to stay, neither possible nor fair. Li He, a researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said, "Protecting cultural heritage has very important significance and value, but if you want to protect it effectively, you must also introduce external forces, such as government investment and attract external financial talents through tourism." ”
In Li He's view, these cultural heritages that still retain traditional farming methods, in the process of modernization, are not just the living forms of the locals, "In the past, the culture there was their life itself." But now, in addition to still being their lives, there is also the meaning of showing the inheritance. The civilization and history, culture and memory that the Hani Terraces carry can and must be transformed. ”
Li Youhua and Lu Changsheng are also in the process of transformation.
At about 6:30 p.m., as the sun set and the last rays of the setting sun dispersed into the rice fields, Li Youhua put down their scythes, withdrew from the threshing machine, and carried the rice up the mountain to go home.
As the sun sets, the people in the village carry rice home. Beijing News reporter Zhou Huaizong photographed
Located in the central area of the terraced fields in Yuanyang County, Zhenkou Village has completed the village tidying up before, and the small buildings of each household are clean and tidy, and the winding and high alleys are smooth and smooth. Before being affected by the epidemic, it was one of the core areas of terraced tourism, with people opening inns in the village, and there were more small supermarkets and commissaries than the average village.
Through half the village, the rice was placed upstairs, the wife sent relatives home, Li Youhua was at the door to collect the fish he brought back, and the grandson was also next to help. After more than an hour, everything was packed, the wife made dinner, the fried rice and fish were set on the table, and the grandchildren sat at the table, it was a harvest season dinner, simple, but also a little special. Li Youhua did not know what the terraced fields would become in the future. But he knew that the 4 grandchildren next to the table, when they grew up, would probably not be like him, and they would have to carry fertilizer to the field and carry rice up the mountain, and they would have more choices and a better life.
Beijing News reporter Zhou Huaizong
Edited by Zhang Shujing Proofreader Wei Zhuo