Life in the Yellow River Estuary

By staff reporter LU RUCAI

EVERYONE, from every class and background, has found a way to make it in Dongying. Each has a different story, but a story with a common theme: it's all worked out well – the changes that have unfolded in their adopted city.

Forty-something years of work experience have earned 56-year-old Wang Junhua a lot of respect from his colleagues. This driver at the Yellow River Delta Production Base recalls without bitterness how a childhood spent in an orphanage taught him to fend for himself by age 13. Back then, he worked as a herdsman for the military horse-breeding farm, as the production base was originally known. "When I arrived here, it was just miles of barren land in every direction, with no roads. We were completely dependent on horses, and as the horses I rode were too tall for me, I needed to step on mangers first and then jump on," Wang chuckles. "I usually rode for a whole day, not out of diligence, but because I was too afraid of having to remount." He was satisfied with his salary at least – RMB 15 a month – although food alone would cost him eleven.

Wang recalled that the farm had about 4,000 workers, most of whom came from other places. "Dongying is a kind of migrant city. People moved here to work in the oilfield and on the farm. The native population was very small." In the 1970s, a job in agriculture really appealed to migrants. As a grain producer, the farm kept enough wheat for its own consumption to make it the only place in Dongying where people could regularly indulge in steamed wheat flour buns – a great privilege during a period of material deficiency.

The farm also began to set up brick houses to replace the former temporary barracks. When he married, Wang and his wife, a staff nurse, moved to the small house allotted them.

The next generation will never duplicate this experience. Like other Chinese parents, Wang used all his savings to buy an apartment of over 100 sq m for his son, a graduate of international trade working in steel wire sales. "He earns over RMB 3,000 a month – even more than me." Wang is delighted and proud.

He and his wife now live in a two-story house themselves. As the land for construction is ample, Dongying dodged skyrocketing house prices. In his spare time, Wang tends to his vegetable garden or goes fishing with friends in the bay nearby. Fishing is often the hobby sport of choice in a coastal city.

"Dongying is experiencing great changes – ones you'd have to see to believe." As a driver, Wang knows every corner of the city like the back of his hand, but he's confident, not unnerved by the rapid development.

Besides easy-going sport fishermen like Wang, about 10,000 people actually fish for a living in Dongying.

Enthusiastic anglers try their luck after lunch.                         Dong Ning

The annual off-season for fishing falls in summer, so at this time of year boats are moored in the sheltering harbor, and fishermen mend nets in anticipation of their next big catch. One of them, Ma, made his first fishing trip 20 years ago and is used to the sea's rhythms. "June to August is spawning season. The government prohibits fishing at this time to ensure sustainable development of the resources." These policies have brought about a good harvest for him this year.

This fisherman, now in his early 40s, migrated from Binzhou, a city about 100 km away from Dongying, and works with eight other fellow countrymen. The boat he mans costs about a million RMB, and nets RMB 300,000 to 400,000 annually. "Our income is 30,000 to 40,000 every year," says Ma. This is regarded as a high salary compared with farming, but Ma and his colleagues need to bear the confines and boredom of a winter cabin to achieve it. The bed for each is only two sq m, beside their stove. With no TV or radio, playing cards is the only entertainment. Every two or three days they break the monotony by going ashore, and their shrimp catch appears on dinner tables across the country, even in Japan and the Republic of Korea. Ma spends 10 months of the year away from home. "These other fishermen are much like me, coming from other places in the delta. The work is too hard for the locals."

According to the blueprint for the Dongying Harbor Economic Development Zone, these men will be pulling up anchor and moving to a new harbor constructed especially for the free and exclusive use of the fishery.

For Ma, Dongying means a relatively high salary, but for Zhou Zhicheng from Taizhong, Taiwan, it evokes a life of comfort and convenience. In 2004, Zhou was dispatched to Huaya Plastic Co., Ltd., a branch plant established in 1995 by Formosa Plastic Group, Taiwan's largest corporation. "I landed in Dongying in the eighth year of my career," says Zhou, whose family still resides in Taiwan. "My working experience on the mainland surely gives me an advantage over my contemporaries back there."

Zhou knew nothing about this small coastal city before being transferred here. "I searched online and found out that it was here that the Yellow River empties into the sea, and that it has miles of wetlands." When his friends come to visit, he shows them through the wetlands and the peaceful vistas of the Yellow River Estuary. "In the beginning, the local accent was a bit difficult for me, but now I can understand and communicate, no problem."

"Traffic here is not as heavy as Beijing and other urban centers; it's comfortable to live in Dongying. And this city is the core of the Yellow River Delta, with a future even brighter than Taiwan's," he speculates.

Zhou flies back regularly to see his family (every two months), via a non-stop flight from Qingdao to his native island. "It'll be easier when the direct flight from Jinan to Taiwan opens."

An enthusiastic advocate of sharing Dongying's natural beauty, Zhou hopes more investment will be earmarked for developing local tourism. Apparently, the government concurs with that point of view. In the near future, we'll see the Yellow River Delta listed on many a traveler's itinerary.