During my recent tour of Anhui Province, I saw many villages with newly built tile-roofed houses tucked among the green trees. When I asked a comrade from Fengyang County about this, he told me that peasants there built 20,000 houses last year even though it was hard to get building materials.

Better housing

I visited the home of Fang Dehou, leader of Bali Production Team in Chuxian County; his home is surrounded by trees, on one side is a bamboo grove, and chickens and geese run to and fro in the yard. Fang Dehou, a straightforward and good-natured man, greeted me. As we toured his home, he pointed at the three old thatched cottages which housed sheep, and said: "These were built in 1953. My parents died early and I suffered hardship in my childhood. During the agrarian reform in 1950, I was allotted a thatched cottage. As life improved, I built these three cottages. After some 20 years, these houses began leaking and my family was larger, so I saved for several years and in 1974 I built three tile-roofed rooms with the help of my relatives. Not long after that, trouble befell me."

"In 1975," Fang went on, "the gang of four said that all peasants had a spontaneous tendency towards capitalism, and 'upstarts' were searched and criticized. The work team sent by the higher authorities also regarded me as an 'upstart.' As a result, I was relieved of my responsibility to do self-examination. After five months when they could find no grounds for their accusations, they had to restore me to my post."

"In recent years, the government has encouraged the peasants to diversify the economy and we are better off than we were. We have favourable conditions in this mountainous area and as you can see, I have three pigs, 15 chickens, 20 geese and 34 sheep. There are some 200 trees around my home including six fruit trees. There is a small patch of bamboo nearby and I grow lotus roots and raise fish in this pond. Last year, I gathered 7,400 kilo-grammes of grain and received a cash income of 3,900 yuan from farm and sideline occupations.

"Last October, I built three more rooms with stone walls, tile roofs, cement floors and glass windows. Another three tile-roofed rooms adjacent to my own were built with my future daughter-in-law's and my money. Commune members in my village all congratulated me and I entertained them all by arranging a movie showing in the front yard."

Songwang Production Brigade in Chuxian County's Zhangguang Commune is a backward, out-of-the-way village. For years, they were not self-sufficient in grain. The young men in the village could hardly find brides, and the village girls also wanted to marry out of this village.

 

Peasants building new tile-roofed houses

In the past two years, they have fixed farm output quotas for each household and diversified the economy. The brigade members' incomes have markedly increased and their life has become more secure. The young men are finding it easier and easier to get married. Not only are the young women from this village willing to stay there but also girls from other villages want to marry into this village. Twenty-five couples out of 270 households in this brigade married last year.

Zhu Yonggang of Songwang brigade and Wu Jiacui of Quanjiao County got married last January. They were classmates at senior middle school from which they graduated in 1976. At school Zhu was clever and honest and Wu thought highly of him. But Songwang was extremely poor and everything, including food, clothing and housing, was inferior to those in her own village. Fearing that her parents would not approve of her thoughts, she never revealed to Zhu her feelings towards him. Recently Song-wang Production Brigade has had an upswing in its production and her suppressed feelings were set free. They were engaged last year and married early this year.

Zhu's mother invited me to visit her son's room. A crimson paper with calligraphy proclaiming happy tidings hung on one wall, a wooden bed decorated with carved flowers, two wardrobes, two wooden trunks and two rattan chairs were neatly arranged in the chamber. In the cupboard was a tea set, on the desk were a transistor radio and a foreign novel, and on the wooden chair was an unfinished woollen sweater; all these were rarely seen in the old Songwang brigade.

Not far from the house, I met with the bride who was ploughing the vegetable plot. Wu Jiacui, tall and sturdy, had a young face, and spoke elegantly. "Songwang will be even better off in a few years," she said.

In 1978, Xiaogang Production Team in Liyuan Commune was one of the poorest teams in Fengyang County. (See first instalment of this report in issue No. 34.) In years past, by early spring the grain from the last harvest had been consumed and the new crop had not ripened. People left the village to seek a living and it became desolate. This spring was different; the village was bustling with activity. Commune members in twos and threes were busy dibbling peanuts; others were pulling carts of manure to the fields. Under the trees women were sitting on small benches making shoes and playing with their children. Chickens and pigs wandered everywhere looking for food....

Yan Hongchang's wife had just had a baby, so I chatted with Yan in a grove of trees in front of his house. This deputy team leader told me that during the period of 1966-76, the annual per-capita food allocation in this village was only 83 kilogrammes and for half of the year they had to supplement this with grain from the state. In recent years, the government has adopted a flexible rural policy, encouraged the peasants to become prosperous through their own labour and, in particular, approved the practice of fixing farm output quotas for each household. As a result, the enthusiasm of the peasants has been aroused and production has developed rapidly. Eighteen of the 20 households in this village reaped over 5,000 kilogrammes of grain last year.

Speaking of the better lives of the commune members, Yan Hongchang spoke not of daily necessities, but of other things. He first mentioned, "Immediately after last Spring Festival on February 5, I went to Nanjing where I stayed in a hotel for three days. More than 10 commune members went to Nanjing during the Spring Festival." Then he brought up an earlier happening: "In 1971, my cousin and I and four others of our two families went to Huaiyuan County in order to make a living. An old peasant vacated a room and allowed us to stay there for half a month. Things are getting better now, so last winter we invited him to be our guest. I killed a pig in his honour. By the way, before last Spring Festival 17 households in Xiaogang slaughtered pigs for their own feasts."

Wu Fengqi, a commune member in Yantangtou Production Team of Liyuan Commune, recently received a letter from Chen Jinfu, a middle-school principal, who was his fellow soldier in the 1950s. Not long ago, Chen saw Wu Fengqi in a newsreel about Fengyang County. He became excited and immediately wrote a letter congratulating Wu.

 

The Wu Fengqi family of Fengyang County set a household record for the summer wheat harvest: over 8,500 kilogrammes on 50 mu of land

Wu Fengqi wrote in his reply: "Last year my family of nine earned a net income of 6,900 yuan. I built four rooms of bricks and tiles, bought a bicycle, a sewing machine, a wristwatch and 450 kilogrammes of chemical fertilizer. With money collected from the three families of my brother, my sister and of my own, we bought a tractor (during the busy season it can plough and during the slack season it can be used for transport). I myself am surprised that I bought so many things in a single year! You must come visit my family during your vacation."

I found Wu Fengqi to be a talkative middle-aged chap. We discussed intensive farming methods and the popularization of scientific techniques in agriculture. He also expounded on the purchase of the tractor and how he would use and service it.

Back in the county town, I met with Chen Tingyuan, the secretary of Fengyang County Party committee. He said: "In the past two years, most tractors were bought individually by the commune members or jointly by several households." Asked what is his opinion about this, he responded: "This is a good beginning. You can see that peasants who adopt the system of fixing farm output quotas for each household still want co-operation and mechanization. Although Wu Fengqi and his brother and sister are not in the same production team, they have jointly bought a tractor. This is a new kind of co-operation. With the development of diversified economy in the future, there will be need for more big machines. Will there be a day when the peasants work out a new form of division of labour and specialization on a voluntary and mutual benefit basis? I think it is possible."

Visiting a rural fair

IN the countryside where people live in villages far apart from each other, the rural fair is an indispensable supplement to the socialist commerce. There the peasants buy and sell agricultural and sideline products and engage in transactions with urban people. With the new flexible rural policy, rural markets have become active again.

The rural fair is a traditional method of exchange in China. In county seats and other towns, there are usually a couple of rural fairs held every 10 days. The fair in Linhuaiguan (a town with 20,000 residents) is rather special. Located by the Huai River and the Beijing-Shanghai Railway, the town is one of the major trade centres in Fengyang County. Along the streets and lanes stretching four kilometres are stalls that are set up every morning, selling grain, peanuts, vegetables, fruit, fish, meat, eggs, cattle, pigs, sheep, firewood, wood and bamboo or willow woven articles. There are also snack counters where local specialties are served.

Here, one can see plainly that the peasants have plenty of grain. In former times when there was a shortage of grain, especially in spring when the new crop was still not ripe and the old stock already consumed, the price of grain soared and life was hard for the people. But now there is an abundant supply of grain and peanuts. A manager of the fair told me that the business volume of grain and oil-bearing crops in the first quarter of this year was greater than in the same period last year. Prices either remained stable or declined somewhat. For instance, rice dropped from 0.78 yuan per kilogramme in March 1980 to 0.54 yuan; the price of pork also has gone down from 2.60 yuan per kilogramme to 2.20 yuan.

To ensure normal trade, this fair employs a dozen managerial personnel. The total volume of business per day exceeds 5,000 yuan. The tax and management fees are one per cent for any exchange of 100 yuan or above at the fair. Therefore the majority of peasants whose business volume is below 100 yuan are exempt.

People praise the rural fair for it has made things easier for them. They can buy agricultural and sideline products; pedlars also sell items which are not easy to get from local state-owned stores, such as hardware and nylon knitted goods.

"State-owned restaurants in Linhuaiguan used to be characterized by their rigid service attitude, limited varieties of dishes and the long time the customers had to wait," explained Wang Jianfang, a cadre of the industrial and commercial administration. "Now the situation has changed with the setting up of individually run snack stalls. If you go to these stalls you can eat immediately. The food served by them is varied and their business is brisk. State-owned restaurants, faced with competitors. quickly expanded their menus, prolonged their business hours and improved services. As a result, the customers are satisfied."

Livestock market

Traditionally, Fengyang held a large fair in spring and in autumn. It was suspended during the "cultural revolution," and only reopened in 1979.

At the spring fair this year, I saw long rows of sheds and stalls dotting both sides of seven streets stretching 3.5 kilometres. East of the county government buildings, clothing, daily necessities and drums were on sale. There were also acrobatics, shadow shows and open-air movies. To the west were stalls selling farm tools and wooden furniture, including beds, wardrobes, tables and chairs. State-owned stores, supply and marketing co-operatives, factories, collectively owned enterprises and individual peasants all came to peddle their goods.

In the open fields southwest of the town were hogs, sheep and oxen. Increasing numbers of peasants are purchasing cattle since the responsibility system in production was adopted. One day there were 1.300 head on sale and the market was thronged with customers.

 

About 1,300 head of cattle on sale at the large spring fair

A tall, lean middle-aged peasant led his newly bought water buffalo out of the market. He said, "A few years ago, I could not have afforded to buy an ox." At that time he had to borrow over 200 yuan a year but last year he earned a cash income of 1,850 yuan, so today he bought a water buffalo for 1,200 yuan. He continued. "The buffalo's legs will help produce more grain. Unless the soil is deeply and carefully ploughed, no rich harvest can be reaped." He further explained, "My fourth elder brother is sick. I'll plough not only the land I'm responsible for, but his as well."

'Underestimation'

"We underestimated the peasants' purchasing power," reported many sales clerks and managers who took part in the three-day fair. Clothing, household items and better quality commodities have become highly-sought-after goods. Moderately priced quilt covers which sold well in the past were not in so much demand as silk ones. The supply and marketing co-operatives sold 5,370 metres of dacron and other synthetic fabrics and 4,752 pieces of clothing. The 1,600 plastic raincoats made by a local products company were also sold out.

Since improving their living standards, the peasants have increased purchases of furniture. They buy high-priced furniture if it is, of good quality. Seventy exquisite wardrobes brought in by peasants from the distant Fan-chang County were priced 20 to 30 yuan higher than the ordinary ones but sold quickly. Chests of drawers shipped to the fair by the county local products company sold for 89.2 yuan each and were all bought up the day they arrived due to their fine craftsmanship. An old woman bought the last one. She said, "My son is going to marry this autumn; I had bought him a spring bed, a wardrobe and a desk. The only thing lacking was a chest of drawers."

Last year, the sales of many commodities increased in Fengyang County, especially higher priced commodities and building materials.

Radios are quite common in the rural areas and individual peasants have begun to buy TVs. Only 19 households.in the county bought them last year, but there was a marked increase this year. At the fair, a peasant bought a Japan-made 12-inch black and white television set at a cost of 500 yuan. To the throng of interested onlookers he explained, "I have a family of six, which earned a cash income of 2,600 yuan last year so we decided to buy a TV set."

Deep impression

The three-day fair drew about 100,000 customers. Total volume of sales was 654,700 yuan, an increase of 37 per cent over spring 1980. Of the items sold, 19.8 per cent were capital goods and 80.2 per cent consumer goods.

Wang Baotai, vice-chairman of the county people's congress standing committee, said: "Before the 'cultural revolution,' the volume of sales used to be only 200,000 to 300,000 yuan. Now, if there was an adequate supply of goods, the sales might reach 2 million yuan. The problem is that many commodities highly sought after by the peasants are in short supply, including building materials, chemical fertilizers, sewing machines, bicycles, watches, dacron clothing, famous brand cigarettes and certain wines. It was estimated that several thousand bicycles or sewing machines could be sold during the three-day fair, but we were able to supply only 30 bikes. In the first quarter of this year, the county withdrew 3 million yuan of banknotes from circulation. We calculate that there are still 8 million yuan in the hands of the masses. There will be a rich harvest of rape and wheat in June, so the peasants will have even more cash. Though the state has adopted many measures in the last two years to raise the production of light and textile industrial goods and building materials, and results have been achieved, there is still a big gap between supply and demand."

The rapid development of agricultural and sideline production will surely promote the development of the nation's industry and commerce. The Chinese market with 800 million peasants has tremendous potential.

Cultural centers

Peasants in Chuxian Prefecture are seeking a fuller cultural life. In the last two years, since the responsibility system in production was adopted, their material life has improved dramatically. As they have more money and time for entertainment, they have set up cultural centres in 56 towns. There cultural, recreational, and physical fitness activities are organized. Zhengji in the nearby county of Tianchang was the first commune in the area to establish such a cultural centre.

 

Peasants watching the traditional "boat dance" on the playground

Town of Zhengji

The 19,000-member Zhengji Commune is located in a remote section of Tianchang County. Zhengli, the commune seat with a population of 2,000, is a traditional commercial town. On market days and holidays, the bazaar is thronged with people, the theatre is filled to capacity and the cultural centre is bustling with activities.

Between the cultural centre and the commune office, there is a small playground. At dusk spectators often gather there to watch ball games. The theatre which is located nearby has a seating capacity of 665; movies are shown three or four days a week and occasionally there are operas. Its mobile film projection unit often tours smaller villages. On the small blackboard in front of the theatre is written the title of the film to be shown each evening, the TV schedule and ticket prices. A peasant can watch the TV programmes for one evening and see a movie at a cost equivalent to the price of a couple of eggs.

The theatre is flanked by a yard with fragrant flowers and lush green trees. In the right courtyard are a greenhouse and a 130-seat TV room which receives Beijing and Nanjing stations. There, both men and women enjoy watching Beijing and international news broadcasts, Chinese and foreign movies, dramas and musical performances on a 24-inch colour TV.

On the bulletin boards in the left courtyard are pictures of current events and posters about family planning. Eighteen magazines and eight newspapers are available in the reading room which can accommodate 50 people. The librarian Liu Yongdi elaborated: "The reading room has a stock of over 1,000 books, about 10 per cent are checked out at any one time." The recreation room has table tennis, Chinese chess and army chess. Ordinarily there are about 20 youngsters playing there. One project of the photography, arts and crafts group is to take local newsphotos and to take pictures for the commune members in their homes.

Forty-year-old Liu Limin has many skills. He can carve characters on seals, run a mimeograph, make paper lanterns, write couplets and mount pictures. Handicapped since childhood, Liu walks with crutches and devotes most of his time to arts and crafts. Through self-study he has improved his technique and, since the establishment of the cultural centre, he has a place to more fully utilize his abilities. He and his assistants carved a sign for the sales department of a local supply and marketing co-operative. He said: "There are many who come to place orders; we are always busy." In the past when one wanted to have such things done, or to buy books or to have one's picture taken, one had to go to the county seat some 20 kilometres away. Now, these things can be done locally.

Old artists and new performers

This cultural centre has absorbed the old folk artists and organized them into a quyi (ballad singing and story telling) group and Yangju (Yangzhou opera) troupe, which often give performances for the masses.

The five-member quyi group performs dagu (a story told to the accompaniment of a small drum and other instruments) which is popular among the peasants. Xu Yizhen, a member of the Changan Production Team, took up story-telling as his occupation, but during the "cultural revolution" when folk arts were banned he could only work in the fields. He amused himself by gambling in his spare time, thus losing all his property and almost his wife. Angry and annoyed, he cut off the index finger of his right hand and swore to cease gambling. But during the slack season, he vacillated and returned to the gambling table. Others accused him of lacking determination. He explained, "In those days I was not allowed to tell stories and had nowhere to go to see an opera, what could I do?" When the cultural centre was set up, he joined the quyi group and after his skill was tested, he was appointed the group leader. This old folk artist's old vigour and vitality have been revived. Nowadays before he begins his story-telling, he often recounts what harm can befall a gambler.

 

Young and old enjoying the new colour television at the cultural centre

Yangju is a local opera form which got its name from the city of Yangzhou about 100 kilometres from Zhengji town. In the early post-liberation years, Zhengji had an amateur Yangju troupe. After the establishment of the cultural centre, the troupe composed mainly of local artists was restored. Last October, the troupe was expanded to 43 members by recruiting 17 young commune members from the county. The commune invited an old performer from outside the county to act as their teacher and the Cultural Bureau of Chuxian Prefecture appointed a director. After going through a three-month training course, the youths gave performances in Zhengji early last February and later they travelled to neighbouring communes.

 

Amateur Yangzhou opera singers

Twenty-year-old Liu Yuexiang is one of the performers who has won special recognition. She is a gentle, pretty youngster. "I loved singing and dancing when I was in school," she explained, "but I never thought of being an actress. Since I was enrolled in this troupe, I have been training my skills from morn till dusk, and I feel pleased."

She played the leading female role in The Legend of the White Snake, a traditional opera. Following her teacher's advice, Liu Yuexiang tried her best to express the feelings of the character in the aria. Her singing was heart-stirring and she won favourable acclaim from the audience.

The acrobatic fighting scenes in this opera are quite difficult to perform. The director deleted some of the most difficult actions, but it was still extremely intricate for these youngsters who were just novices. Seventeen-year-old actress Li Yuexia had to perform a series of acrobatic moves in the opera, so she got up early every morning to rehearse the actions. Her resulting progress has been outstanding.

Development of the center

Zhengji did not receive any aid from the state or funds from the peasants to build the cultural centre. The funds for the facilities have come from two sources: the commune enterprises' profits and the income obtained through various activities of the centre. The facilities were built with local materials to save money. The 33 rooms of the cultural centre and the theatre are converted commune buildings. Workers and staff members of the cultural centre levelled the land to build the playfield, whitewashed walls and made theatrical props themselves.

As to how to consolidate and develop the cultural centre in the future, deputy secretary of the commune Party committee Wang Yong-han suggested:

Further popularize agricultural science and technology. Since the adoption of the responsibility system in production, the peasants' enthusiasm for learning science and technology has soared and the agro-technicians in the commune have been extremely busy. People call at their office, wait for them at their homes and stop them on the road. Since there are very few agro-technicians at present, they cannot go from house to house to give advice. Last year, training courses were opened by the commune and the cultural centre to train over 500 people. Within the last 10 months, 20 lectures on. agricultural technology were broadcast over the loudspeaker in numerous villages to acquaint the peasants with advanced practices suitable to their localities. This type of activity should be expanded.

Gradually achieve balance between income and expenditure. At present, the part-time Yangju troupe is still in its initial stage of development; its income often falls short of the expenditures. It has decided to run a seasonal enterprise (such as an ice-sucker plant). The performers and staff members can devote part of their time to production and strive for self-sufficiency in funds or a slight surplus, so as to be able to gradually expand facilities for cultural and recreational activities.

A cultural network should gradually be set up in the commune. The commune's cultural centre should promote the masses' cultural activities in the brigades. Recreation rooms have already been set up in three production brigades.