In rural Shandong, farmers become artists
XIAOKANG@GRASSROOTS
A xiaokang society, or a moderately prosperous society, has been the dream of Chinese people for thousands of years. Our reporters travel around the country to cover the arduous efforts being made in order to realize the dream.
Shandong province, with the most villages in China, is synchronizing poverty alleviation with rural revitalization by introducing high-end talent to rural areas and developing projects to enrich residents while maintaining an environmentally friendly ecological system.
A typical example is Shengshuiyu town in Jining's Sishui county, which is known as the home of Confucius.
Around 10 minutes' drive along a mountain road nestled in greenery, visitors arrived at the town's Dongzhongdu village in late July. In a forest area beside a lake, some teenagers were practicing physical training and others were drawing landscapes. In houses close to the forest, some youths were doing woodwork while others were working with clay.
"This is really a fantastic place for my students to learn things from nature. They learn fast when they get themselves involved," said Hu Jicheng, who led a group of students from Chengzi primary school for field studies.
Last year, by contrast, the village was seldom visited by outsiders. Many houses were dilapidated and roads were narrow and muddy. Things began changing when Shengshuiyu town was designated as a demonstration area for the province's rural revitalization campaign last year. Since then, local governments have invested in roads, water supplies and a drainage system, as well as computer network systems in the demonstration areas — home to 3,576 families in 18 villages.
After completing the infrastructure, local governments initiated a campaign to woo talent to develop projects in the communities. To date, local governments have signed 30 projects with 37 partners.
"We have changed 48 old, shabby houses that were not being used into places where students and tourists can read, have coffee and tea, work with clay and do woodwork," said Tian Bin, 46, one of the partners.
"The local government has built the platform for us. What we need to do is to develop a rural environment in which people and nature can coexist in harmonious ways."
"Our village is changing every day. The environment is getting better and better, and so are our lives," said Li Baoyu, the Party branch secretary of Dongzhongdu village, adding that the projects developed by the partners are bringing more income to the village.
With more tourists coming to the village, restaurants and shops are getting busier, providing jobs for residents.
Kong Deyun, 44, found a satisfactory job at a restaurant.
"It takes me five minutes to walk to the restaurant. I can earn around 2,000 yuan ($287) every month," Kong said, adding that she also sells the fruits and vegetables she grows to the restaurant.
"The price the restaurant offers is usually higher than the market," she said.
Li Baoyu is especially glad to see so many young people. "Seeing young people in our village makes me feel confident in our future," he said.
Shandong has been putting efforts on building environment friendly rural areas over the years. It has developed 1,500 villages that feature beautiful landscapes and sound living environments by improving infrastructure such as toilets and sewage treatment facilities, according to the provincial Department of Ecology and Environment.
Based on a sustainable ecology, local governments are cultivating advantages to enrich the lives of local farmers. Farmers in Qingzhou, a county-level city of Weifang, Shandong province, have a profitable sideline. When free from farm work, they pick up brushes to portray their real life in rural areas through art.
Wang Huaqin had never thought a farmer like her could earn 400 to 500 yuan a day by painting. The 49-year-old has become a skilled painter, though she started learning just four years ago.
Several of her paintings have won prizes in provincial and national competitions, including one of the works being the first of the farmers' paintings in Qingzhou to have been displayed in the National Art Museum of China.
In 2017, she established a painting studio and has helped more than 70 farmers learn painting. Each of them can earn as much as 70,000 to 80,000 yuan every year. Wang and her team also dabbled in commercial wall paintings.
"We have been invited to draw on the walls in Qingdao and cities in Hebei," Wang said.
"Each of our farmers can earn more than 10,000 yuan per month when business is good," Wang told a media tour on July 21.
There are more than 30,000 farmer-painters like Wang in Qingzhou. Every year they create 500,000 paintings with total revenues reaching 300 million yuan, thanks to local government's efforts to extend the industrial chain of peasant paintings and combine it with tourism.
A farmer-painter with a medium skill level or above can earn 20,000 yuan more every year, the local government said.
"What we are portraying are most common activities in our everyday lives — stories happening nearby, harvest scenes and places we live and work," said 74-year-old Ma Jiqing, a locally prominent painter who has been involved in the arts for more than 60 years.
Ma is a heritage successor of the Qingzhou farmer-artists. His work has become an essential part of his family life, attracting fellow villagers to learn.
The local government has been making great efforts to encourage the development of farmer-painters in a bid to boost tourism sectors and rural revitalization, said Chen Tongzhou, head of the Qingzhou publicity department.
"By 2023 Qingzhou is expected to have more than 100 painting studios, 100 rural cooperatives and 100 online companies selling farmers' paintings," Chen added.
记者：解传姣 赵瑞雪
视频：赵瑞雪
图片：赵瑞雪 肖达
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