Where am I situated right now? Friends may
wonder where I have been the last 2 months. At the moment when I am writing
this passage, I am still in Ningxia China, sitting along lakeside with lots of
lotus leaves and a bright sun overhead. So far away from Switzerland, so close to
my home – Hong Kong, only with 3 hours flight. In a week time I will be back to
the land of mountains and cheese. And most of all, I will say good-bye to
Mandarin Chinese and switch back to German mode again.
It is stupid that in China people can’t use
Facebook or Google because of censorship and there’s always limitation of
information you can get from the national news. It’s definitely true to say
China is like a black box, there is always a mysterious side of things.
Government officials, companies, communities, a person, people just like to
keep things on their own. Unlike Western culture, Chinese don’t work directly
and straight forward. We have a saying goes as “A man takes you wandering in a
garden” means things don’t work out right away, but take lots of turns.
Let me first briefly say why I am in China. Here
is North West China in Ningxia province. You can hardly find people from
southern provinces, like Guangdong, or even from Hong Kong. I’m staying in a
town called Qingtongxia, 40 km from Gangchengzi village, where I carried out my
field work to interview apple growers. I visit their orchards for farm
assessments. Until now, I have visited around 20 orchards to find out what
had changed in their farm practices after converting to organic farming. Also, to see what
are the social, economic and ecological benefits of growing organic apples, and
what do they plan for the future. Another thing is to carry out RISE (Response Induced Sustainability Evaluation) for 10 orchards and at the end, to hold a farmer workshop to feedback
the results to those farmers.
I am glad that things turned out quite well
at the end, although there were some tough times and frustrated moments.
Because of the early April hailstorm, apple blossoms were hit and apple trees
can bear only little fruits, 60-80% less than the normal yield. Therefore, many
farmers were not at home and out of town for side-jobs, as construction workers
or work for some nearby vineyards. So it was hard for me to contact farmers for
interview or to visit their orchards. Only their wives or grandsons- or
daughters stay at home. For a few times I slept over at their homes because it’s
already late when I finished the interview at late night. But most of them are
very warm welcoming; getting known I am from afar and generally they are
helpful all the time. It’s funny to see one farmer has a big mansion with a
rose garden next to his apple orchard. I nearly got lost when I was looking for
a toilet. Most farmers have a big pasma or LCD TV at home and quite well living
standard. I wonder if they earn more than what we earn in Hong Kong, as most of
them own beautiful houses.
The highlight of my stay was to hold a
farmer workshop to present the topic what is farm sustainability and findings
from my RISE assessments. Talking about time keeping, Chinese farmers ain’t
like Swiss. We planned the workshop at 7 pm and there were only a few came. I
was so worried back then, but people started showing up one by one, slowly, and
finally the workshop started at 9:15am. I tried my best to finish it on time.
It was the first time for me to present in Chinese. To be frank I speak English
better than Chinese, but I am happy that they told me my mandarin Chinese had
improved a lot in a month time. My parents also came for visit and support, I’m
glad to let them know what my work is actually about and everything in a
Chinese farm village was new for them – people from the big city.
The sun is heating really hard right how
overhead me, I guess I have to go and hide inside a library. Last few days in
Ningxia, I plan to visit a few closer apple growers and farewell with them,
travel to south of Ningxia to the “no-man’s land” and gather myself again. My dad mocked me, saying I live like a Gypsy, a
nomadic girl, moving from place to place. I also wonder where and when will I find
a place to settle down, where I feel like home.