A new generation of volunteers in Dingzhou.

Builders of New Countryside in Dingzhou

By staff reporter LU RUCAI & QIAO TIANBI

Many contemporary Chinese intellectuals have followed the motto of Song Dynasty scholar Fan Zhongyan (989-1052): “Be the first to show concern and the last to enjoy comforts.” Since the 1930s, many have worked towards solving China’s rural issues.

Noted sociologist Fei Xiaotong proposed rebuilding rural areas through industry, thereby freeing farmers from the soil. His Xiangtu Zhongguo (Rural China, 1948) and Xiangtu Chongjian (Rural Reconstruction, 1948) are essential reading in studies of Chinese rural issues. In contrast to the Academic School represented by Fei Xiaotong were the experiments in rural reconstruction that went on in the 1920s and 1930s, when a group of young intellectuals, outstanding among them Yan Yangchu (Y. C. James Yen) and Liang Shuming, went to the countryside. Dr. Yan Yangchu (1890-1990) was a Yale graduate devoted to training a new generation of well-informed, productive and healthy farmers. His Rural Reconstruction Movement was an integrated program involving education, livelihood, public health and self-governance that targeted the interlocking problems of illiteracy, poverty, disease and civic inertia among peasants in developing countries. He later revised this program based on his experiences in South America, Africa and Southeast Asia. In 1987 U.S. President Ronald Reagan granted him the Presidential End Hunger Award for lifetime achievement. Another scholar Liang Shuming (1893-1988) meanwhile emphasized rejuvenation of traditional Chinese culture in his experiment in Shandong’s Zouping County. Neither Dr. Yan nor Liang Shuming managed to solve basic rural problems, but their experiments reflected the strong sense of social responsibility and concern felt by Chinese intellectuals for Chinese farmers.

In the 1990s a new generation of intellectuals launched their campaign to construct the “new countryside.” Their approach differed from that of their predecessors in advocating mobilization of the entire urban economic system towards supporting rural economic development, while according full respect to farmers, their opinions and experience. Their aim was to help farmers gain capability to improve their lives.

Builders of the new countryside have emphasized different aspects. Rural issues expert Wen Tiejun expounded his concept of organic agriculture and new-mode agricultural cooperatives. He established the James Yen Rural Reconstruction Institute in Hebei’s Dingxian County (later renamed Dingzhou City). Economist Mao Yushi looked into the development of small-sum loans in rural areas. He founded a private organization in Shanxi Province that gives aid to poor farmers by issuing small-sum loans. Sociologist Zhou Hongling promoted democratic awareness among farmers in Hubei Province.

The efforts of these scholars have provided first-hand information as regards the reality of rural China and points of reference in the country’s endeavor to solve the rural issue. Wen Tiejun describes his work as “an investigation” directed towards policy makers. The Chinese Ministry of Education has listed his rural economy experiment as an official academic topic.

Since its establishment in the summer of 2003, the James Yen Rural Reconstruction Institute has attracted worldwide attention, due to its rural reconstruction mission and the dedicated Chinese intellectuals within it. Its founder, Wen Tiejun, is described as a revivalist of the rural reconstruction campaign.

Yan Yangchu with his family.

Two Experiments in 70 Years

Elders of Zhaicheng Village in Hebei’s Dingzhou City (previously Dingxian County) all remember the song: “Clad in coarse cotton clothes, fed on plain food, wielding farm tools, they spend their days in the field. Without farmers, who could live between the earth and the sky?” The villagers learned this Song of Farmers 70 years ago from Dr. Yan Yangchu (James Yen), when he led them in his Rural Reconstruction Movement. Dr. Yan is the only Asian ever to rank with such luminaries as Albert Einstein and John Dewey. In 1943 he won the Copernican Citation as one of the “ten greatest revolutionaries of our time.”

In 1926 Dr. Yan started his education program for peasants in Dingxian and established an education promotion society. Three years later he and his family moved to Dingxian, where his former residence still stands. Within the same year, more than 60 other intellectuals also settled in Dingxian. Dr. Yan commented that the move from Beijing to Dingxian was not merely a geographical difference of a few hundred kilometers but a backward leapfrog over a dozen-century span. It was probably the first time in Chinese history that intellectuals had actually put into practice the slogan of “returning to the countryside.” Dr. Yan and his comrades overcame many difficulties in trying to adapt to rural life as they attempted to analyze China’s social conditions in the country. This they did through comprehensive investigations of one county and, based on this model, worked out a plan for rural reconstruction. Dr. Yan described his project as “a Western laboratory transposed to rural Dingxian.” More than 500 intellectuals worked in this Dingxian “lab.”

Although 74-year-old villager Grandpa Han was not personally involved in Dr. Yan’s experiment, he nevertheless gets excited when talking about it. “You know how advanced my village is? We have seen silent films that Yan Yangchu acquired as early as 70 years ago. Some sections were about the villagers themselves.” Grandpa Han’s knowledge of the project came from his mother, who was a student at Dr. Yan’s school. Dr. Yan taught the villagers to read and write, helped them improve their strains of cotton and breeds of pig and established a village clinic and teachers’ school for girls. He tried to improve general conditions in Dingxian through his broad education program. Dr Yan also set up a radio station that started its daily broadcast each day at 6.00 am with a weather forecast. Among China’s then 80 or so radio stations, Yan’s was the only one aimed at rural dwellers.

The Dingxian experiment ended in 1937 with the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.

Dr. Wen Tiejun went to Zhaicheng Village in 2003 and founded the James Yen Rural Reconstruction Institute at the former headquarters of Dr. Yan’s experiment project. Dr. Wen is a three Fs expert and dean of the Agriculture and Rural Development School of Beijing’s Renmin University. A few years ago, Dr. Wen went to Zhaicheng Village on a rural investigation trip. In cooperation with the village, he founded the institute and named it after Dr. Yan in tribute to his work to improve conditions in the countryside.

“Ours and Dr. Yan’s experiments have a similar background. They are based on resolving various rural conflicts exacerbated by accelerated industrialization and urbanization. There are many urgent rural issues that call for a solution,” says Dr. Wen. The Rural Reconstruction Institute, however, works on principles that differ from Dr. Yan’s Rural Reconstruction Movement.

What the Institute Offers to Farmers

Children at the Zhaicheng Village kindergarten.

It was during the sowing season in April 2004 that the first training session opened at the institute. Its 100 students were farmers from various parts of the country, and its teachers were experts and scholars who had volunteered their services.

The institute’s policy is to offer free training sessions, tuition, registration, food and lodging to farmers, on condition that they spend two-thirds of their working hours volunteering their services, or “exchanging their labor for food.” Qiu Jiansheng, director of the Institute Office, explains that the policy does not encourage “free acquirements.” Its aim is to nurture acknowledgment of the value of rural labor and protect the dignity of laborers. In addition, this policy is the most practical way of attracting motivated but financially strapped farmers to training courses that can help them and other farmers prosper.

The school teaches basic computer skills, vegetable and crop planting techniques and provide information on working in cities. Farmers also attend lectures given by representatives of rural cooperatives that are invited to the school from various parts of the country. It was after attending these lectures that villagers founded the Zhaicheng Village Cooperative.

The institute’s principle of “A technical approach to helping farmers acquire the capability to help themselves” is reflected in its courses. They include studies of farmers, rural areas and theories of rural sustainable development, as well as rudiments of politics, economics and rural cooperatives. There is also the opportunity to learn ecological and environmental protection and bio-diversity, history of rural construction, the theory and practice of alternative economy, rural construction in foreign countries, and an outline of modern scientific development. The institute targets young rural dwellers with at least a middle school education that identify with rural reconstruction concepts, outstanding farmers active in safeguarding their own rights, those who have helped themselves to prosper, and those who actively promote the law. Other prospective students are rural doctors, agricultural technicians, grassroots cadres, and young volunteers who choose to work in rural communities. “We provide systematic training for farmers that will give them the capability of protecting their own interests,” says Wen Tiejun.

Dr. Wen advises his students to set up cooperatives and pool their resources to buy fertilizers and feed, saying, “If you apply pesticide to your own plot, the insects will only transfer to someone else’s. If we join hands in concerted pest and insect control, it will be more effective and economical. If we join hands in marketing our crops, each of us will get a share of the profit. If we cannot get loans from banks, we should organize our own fund cooperatives and help ourselves.” Graduates of the first training session have founded more than a dozen rural cooperatives in their home villages and experimented with the concepts they learned at the institute. According to Wen Tiejun, the ultimate aim of rural cooperatives is to promote organic agriculture. He says that when villagers no longer need to use chemical fertilizers and pesticides, he will help them get in touch with urban consumer communities who will buy their produce. But at the moment, the major advantage of cooperatives is their collective purchase of production materials that cut farming costs.