Taiwan youth Li Peizhen (front fourth from right) led partners to actively participate in the revitalization of rural communities on the mainland. Ta Kung Pao reporter He Dehua photographed
"The land here can be sticky, and now my heart is firmly glued." Li Peizhen, a planner with 15 years of experience in community building in Taiwan, has been involved in rural revitalization community construction in Fujian for nine years. She recalled that on the first day of arriving in Qingjiao Village, Haicang District, Xiamen City, many years ago, she encountered a torrential rain, stepped into the mud, and when she pulled out her foot, she ripped off the laces of her sandals. Today's Qingjiao Village has already undergone tremendous changes under the transformation of Li Peizhen's team. The ancient houses of southern Fujian, which were once barren and dilapidated, have been transformed into training classes, activity centers, cinemas, and exhibition halls; Those rural mothers-in-law and mothers who used to circle the stove and fields all day long joined the Loving Mother Group, the Red Clay Happy Mother-in-Law Group, and the Han Rainbow Sister Group.
After launching the "Beautiful Xiamen, Co-Creation" activity in Xiamen, Li Peizhen followed the Urban and Rural Institute of National Taiwan University to the Qingjiao Village Courtyard Society in Haicang District, Xiamen City in 2014, opening the prelude to the Taiwan team escort service and cross-strait youth cooperation between Fujian and Taiwan.
Although Qingjiao Village is only a small village in the southeast of Fujian, it has a long history of nearly a thousand years and is known as "Minnan Jinshi Famous Village", but under the wave of urbanization, many young people in the village have abandoned their farms and left their hometowns to work in big cities. Qingjiao Village gradually became an "empty shell village", leaving only lonely old people and young children. Because the village is abandoned, I am afraid that I will not be able to escape the fate of being demolished. In order to preserve their hometown, some villagers, Li Peizhen and several other enthusiastic Taiwan compatriots began a plan to rebuild Qingjiao Village.
"Empty Shell Village" becomes "Net Red Village"
After investigation by the reconstruction team, it was found that there were as many as 39 ancient houses from the Ming and Qing dynasties left in the village. Li Peizhen said that the reconstruction work began with these ancient houses. Her team worked with the village's young people to clean up overgrown pig pens, chicken farms, toilets, and renovate dilapidated old houses into culturally charged places such as museums and academies.
Li Peizhen said that in the process of rebuilding Qingjiao Village, there have been many difficulties, for example, some villagers do not understand, and after explanation, they have slowly supported the reconstruction work. Only when the villagers actively participate in the reconstruction can the village be replaced with a new look. In order to facilitate her work, Li Peizhen also moved to the village to eat and live with the villagers. "From the original mentality of going to Xiamen on business, to the later blurring of the boundary between life and work, as long as there is something in the village, I will appear." This also made me feel the warmth and emotion brought about by the common language, cultural proximity, and people-to-people affinity between the two sides of the strait. So, the reconstruction project ended, the team returned to Taiwan, and I stayed. ”
Li Peizhen, together with a group of young people such as villager Chen Junxiong, turned the "empty shell village" that was originally facing demolition into a "net red village". Many groups from various provinces and cities in the mainland have visited Qingjiao Village, and the University of Tokyo in Japan has also invited Li Peizhen and others to share the successful cases of qingjiao village reconstruction. "This allows me to see the great opportunities and prospects for young people in Taiwan to participate in the construction of rural areas on the mainland."
Build cultural self-confidence and identity
In June 2019, Li Peizhen established the Straits Urban and Rural Development Foundation (hereinafter referred to as the Foundation) based on the original Taiwan Youth Team in Haicang District, Xiamen City. Last year, the foundation cooperated with relevant departments and sent nearly 20 Taiwanese youth and community builders to five villages in Xiamen's Haicang District, including Xiachen She, Cangjiang She, Lutang She, Guo Han She, and Terracotta Society, to participate in the construction of rural communities.
"We are problem-oriented, tailor-made appropriate community construction projects for five villages, and use the 'first create people, then create things' mechanism to make villagers the protagonists of rural reconstruction and revitalization." Every time Li Peizhen's team goes to work in a village, it must conduct an inventory of local resources and conduct household research to record social conditions and public opinions. "In the part of 'creating people', mothers-in-law and mothers are a gentle and tenacious force involved in rural revitalization, and we must form a women's team in each village." Li Peizhen said that through edutainment activities, women are allowed to go out of their small homes to build everyone and participate in rural public affairs, and they will change a family while changing themselves.
Chen Jiawei, a community builder who has worked as a professional model in Taiwan, participated in the planning of the "Sisters and Sisters Stand Up" activity in Lutang Society last year, and she led dozens of Lutang Society women to conduct body and stand posture training, and also set up a catwalk team and a small drum team, becoming a fresh force for enlivening rural cultural life. Chen Jiawei said that he had a great sense of accomplishment when he saw the self-confidence that these mothers exuded from the inside out through the improvement of their manners.
"Only by first developing emotions about the land beneath our feet can we build cultural identity and cultural self-confidence." Li Peizhen said, "In the process of restoration at Lutang Academy, we put together the local literary and historical stories on the wall and displayed them, and the villagers were surprised to find that their villages and their ancestors had so many remarkable deeds, which is to establish cultural self-confidence and cultural identity, that is, our 'Bacon Project'." Li Peizhen explained that the "Bacon Project" inherits the concept of "cultivating and reading culture", and through the "Bacon Project", the young people in Taiwan have not only rooted the roots of loving the hometown, the society and the country, but also the young people in Taiwan have taken root in their identification with this land. (Ta Kung Pao reporter He Dehua Xiamen report)
"Seeking roots" becomes "taking root" and harvesting richly
Pictured: Taiqing Li Peizhen's team has put a lot of thought into the transformation of Qingjiao Village in Haicang District, Xiamen, and even the road signs have been designed quite distinctively. \Provided by respondents
Wang Jialin, a Taiwanese youth from the ethnic minority areas of Kaohsiung, Taiwan, is now the leader of Li Peizhen's team stationed in the Terracotta Society, which is also a new site for her to participate in the creation of townships after the Qingjiao Village Yuanqian Society and Lutang Society in Haicang District, Xiamen.
"I 'rooted' here because I 'found roots.'" In 2018, Wang Jialin, who has always been eager to find his roots in the mainland, moved his family from Taiwan to Haicang, Xiamen, and not only found the roots of his hometown on the mainland, but also found the opportunity for their family to take root in the mainland: her husband Chen Xinwei opened a baking shop, and Wang Jialin became a community builder.
The village is a natural village, and most of the young and middle-aged people in the village work outside the village, and most of them are left behind. After Wang Jialin and his team entered the Terracotta Society, they promoted the project with the three main axes of the Terracotta Public Welfare College, the Terracotta Happy Mother-in-Law, and the Terracotta Youth Tour Team, which built an "empowerment platform" for the villagers and gave them more opportunities to participate in public affairs. "For children, we have formulated a 'Asuka Plan' to promote reading, so that reading can open children's horizons, fly higher and see farther like birds, and set up a volunteer team of 'Asuka Parents' to care for left-behind children." Wang Jialin said that over the past year or so, he has gained a lot by participating in the construction of the Terracotta Society. "The future is picturesque, and I look forward to being a brilliant color that adds a touch of color to the work of rural revitalization on the mainland."