Chris and I spent a night last week in a Chinese village. A friend of ours goes periodically to her ancestral village to help tutor some of the kids in English and to encourage them to stay in school. This was the first time since we arrived in Xiamen that Chris and I got to go into a rural area of Fujian province. I had visited a village in Shanxi province before to help out with a school, so I had some idea of what to expect, but it was still an eye-opening experience.
Granite quarries are important in the industry here, so many of the village houses we saw were made of stone, and therefore were quite sturdily built. You could tell it was quite a prosperous village based on the quality of the houses, many of which had embellished tile roofs. The house we were staying at was quite large, with two stories, 4 small bedrooms and a central room that was open to the sky. It had electricity and running water too. Our friend told us that it was the house her grandfather had lived in, and was therefore probably close to a century old. Of course, it wasn’t like home. The beds were beautifully carved of wood, but were basically wooden benches on which a straw mat had been laid. It was pretty amazing to be staying in such a house though! Chris and I had brought air mattresses, and we managed to find a mosquito net for me, so we passed the night as comfortably as could be expected.
We spent most of our time hanging out with some of the local teenagers. When I first met them, I honestly thought they were maybe 12 or 13 years old. I was shocked to find out that they were all 16 or over (up to 18 years old)! I don’t know if it was undernourishment or other factors, but they all looked (and acted) much younger than their years. The crazy thing was that many of them, young and innocent as they were, had already been drawn into local gangs, survived drug abuse, or been approached to become prostitutes. I guess in this rural area the rule of law is little felt, and local gangs and criminals have been running the show for years. Within their own village, the kids were somewhat protected, but when they have to go to neighboring towns and villages to go to middle and high school, they are exposed to these bad influences. Many of the kids also don’t have much in the way of role models, with their parents working in far off cities, or who have mental problems, and who are generally uneducated themselves so don’t encourage their children very much in their education.
The kids were incredibly sweet though – none of this “too cool for you” attitude or pampered selfishness that many city kids have. The older kids took care of the younger kids with a parent-like affection, and many of them are running the household. It is strange – they are so child-like in some ways, and so mature in others. We tutored them for a bit in English, although none of them really seemed to see the point of staying in school, and they took us to a local temple and up the mountain to a beautiful lake where we jumped in (clothes and all) and went swimming. After their initial shyness, they became all talkative, especially after they figured out that I speak a bit of Chinese…then it was all chatter until we had to leave, at which they made me promise to come back and go swimming all day long with them. Two girls in particular really tugged at my heartstrings…one has survived an encounter with drug abuse and a stint in rehab, and her friend, her companion since they were born, has a mentally ill mother and brother, and is basically taking care of the family.
We only stayed for about 24 hours, but it was an exhausting and HOT 24 hours, and we felt like we had done enough for several days. In the midst of the playing and the learning and the surviving mosquitoes and hard beds though, were moments of real enjoyment and relaxation. The countryside is so beautiful, and the people so warm and simple. And although clearly there is a darker underbelly to rural China, the villages have their own charm that the cities cannot begin to emulate. And being in a situation where people have so many needs (they are far from destitute, yet there is still so much to be done in terms of the quality of life, and the choices and opportunities they have available to them), makes me rethink what I’m really doing with my life, and how I can best use the time I have here in China.
