Similar to Kongjiazuo Village in size, Shuitou Village is a mountainous village with over 1,700 people in 415 households, of whom over 700 are rural laborers. The village was used to living at the mercy of the elements. Due to the nutrient-poor soil in mountainous areas and the lack of water, the village never had enough food to eat and so was forced to rely on government loans to buy resold grain.
A few years ago, government at a higher level appealed to the villagers to plant peach trees. At first, people dismissed the idea, protesting that for generations, peaches had been picked and eaten, not planted. It was not until later, when the county sent specialists to provide guidance, that the village planted over 700 mu of peach trees.
"How does the income earned from planting peaches compare with farming?" I asked.
"It's a lot better!" said An Aimin. "Now for every mu of roughly forty peach trees, we can harvest around 1,700 or 1,800 jin of fruit if we get things right. But the cost of watering, pesticides and fertilizers is high, and organic fertilizers are also needed, such as sheep and cow manure. As well as that there's a risk of serious losses if there happens to be a windstorm or continuous rain when the peaches are bearing fruit."
When I asked about farmers leaving home to work, Aimin said, "It's always been our tradition to work elsewhere. But now most of the migrant workers from our village are youngsters. There are about a hundred of them. At our age though, we tend to stay here."
"Have you all worked outside the county before?"
Pointing at Zhang Zengnian and Wang Zhenhai, Aimin said, "We all have."
Aimin, an electrician, went to Beijing in 1993. He remembered clearly that his first job was to decorate a restaurant named "Fragrant House" under a labor contractor from Sichuan. The contractor offered food and accommodation, and promised to pay him when the project was finished. After three months of hard work, the time came to tally up the wages. No one could have foreseen that the contractor would drive off at night without paying them. Aimin didn't know anyone in Beijing, so could do nothing but accept the loss.
Later he worked for a fellow Baoding villager. After all, they shared the same roots and wouldn't dare con each other.
At that time, work was tough. Aimin told me that all the workers lived in a shed on the construction site, which was stiflingly hot and mosquito infested during summer, and too cold to sleep in during the winter. Breakfast was always steamed buns and pickles, and lunch and supper consisted of either potato or cabbage. Sometimes they didn't see meat for weeks. Working overtime was routine, and they were never compensated for it. Late payment was also a regular occurrence, and you counted yourself lucky if your contractor didn't run off.
Accountant Wang Zhenhai had also left home to work. At the age of nineteen, he started work as a busboy at a restaurant owned by a fellow villager in Tianjin, where he washed dishes and did the cleaning. Later he worked as a dish assembler for three years, during which time he learned to cook. He then worked as a chef at several different restaurants and made some good money in the process. At the age of twenty-seven, Zhenhai went home and got married. Then he left to work again, this time for eight years. With the money he made this time, Zhenhai pulled down his old earthen house and built a new brick one with five rooms.
I asked why he didn't work again, and Zhenhai said that on one hand, the commune asked him to come back to work as an accountant, and on the other, being a cook was no easy job. Customers would often complain about the food, either it was too salty or too bland, and he would often get into arguments. The bottom line was that there was no insurance of any kind. Once, Zhenhai accidentally spilled half a pot of hot oil on his feet when frying fish, after which he received treatment for three months. His boss wouldn't pay him these three months' wages, and Zhenhai had to come up with the 5,000 yuan medical expenses himself. Zhenhai argued with his boss, "I was injured while working. You should at least cover some of it." But his boss wouldn't listen, "Whose fault is it but your own! Nothing like this has ever happened before." This speech left Zhenhai cold. As a migrant worker, who could you blame? Who would help you?
Still, there were some kindhearted people in the city. Zhenhai spent two years working in a small community restaurant whose customers were mostly elderly people from the area. In the process, he gradually got to know his old customers, as well as what each one liked: he has a sweet tooth; he wants his food less salty… he was always careful to cook exactly according to his customer's taste. The old people liked their quiet but kind cook, and often brought him fruit or clothes.
Sitting to one side, Su Shuishan had worked as a miner in Datong, Shanxi for several years.
The mine Shuishan worked in was a private one that lacked the most basic equipment. In those years, coal-mining accidents were common, and every time the TV broadcast news of another accident, it would keep Shuishan awake all night. He dreaded being lowered into the mine, and each time he would pray to be pulled up again a little earlier. He had been on the verge of quitting many times, but when he thought of the 2,000 yuan a month salary, Shuishan steeled himself to persevere. After all, his family needed the money to build a house, his parents needed the money to see a doctor, and his children needed the money to go to school.
A day before the Mid-autumn Festival in 2004, a dynamite storehouse in the mine exploded, killing five workers on duty. Shuishan was supposed to be on duty that day; but a bout of diarrhea had kept him home.
This was the last straw. Shuishan was determined to quit no matter how much the job paid. He packed his things and went home.
