In Search of the Grain Soul: A Journey Back to 2011

I. Returning to 2011

The reserve shuttle bus pulled over beside a narrow concrete track, flanked on either side by familiar-looking karst hills. It passed through a stand of sugarcane; in truth, countless bald limestone outcrops are ringed by cane fields. Unlike the purple-skinned varieties eaten fresh, this cane bears a dark brown rind dusted with a pale bloom. The stalks are dry and shrivelled rather than plump, making it hard to imagine they are sugar cane destined for the mill. “Look! White-headed langurs!” came the cries from our travelling companions. Everyone hurried to the back of a rocky hill. Looking up, many were already holding binoculars or cameras with telephoto lenses. The rock face was close enough to touch, with no fencing to obstruct the view. Indeed, without any equipment, one could plainly see a few monkeys with white fur on their crowns climbing up and down the bare cliff. This is the white-headed langur, a Class I nationally protected species even rarer than the giant panda.

● The black-furred white-headed langurs can be seen on the limestone hills.

This karst landscape, which serves as their habitat, was precisely my first stop fourteen years ago when I began working in the rural sector.

After graduating from university, I worked in advertising at Ogilvy & Mather in Beijing. Driven by a concern for rural issues, and particularly a personal quest to explore my own rural roots and identity, I resigned in early 2011. I first interned at Xiaomaolü Farm, then applied to join ActionAid’s youth programme. I was posted to their Longzhou project site in Guangxi, where I worked on integrated rural development initiatives covering ecological agriculture, volunteer teaching, microfinance, and ethnic cultural preservation. ActionAid is an international alliance of non-profit organisations dedicated to eradicating global poverty.

A year later, at the end of 2011, I left Guangxi and returned to my hometown village in Zhejiang. Since then, life took various turns, and I never had the chance to return to Guangxi.

● After leaving Guangxi, my wife Mei Yuhui and I returned to our hometown in Tongxiang, Zhejiang, to establish ‘Mei He Yu’.

During the ‘Great Heat’ solar term in 2024, the ‘Tuánlì Structure’ podcast, which I contribute to, invited Ms Zhang Lanying, former regional director of ActionAid China, to discuss the rural transformations she witnessed and the evolving stages of rural development work. After recording the episode, we agreed to revisit the project sites from those days. Two months later, Ms Zhang messaged me with a plan to return to Longzhou before the National Day holiday, attaching an itinerary. I was initially surprised to see the ‘White-headed Langur Ecotourism Area’ listed as the first stop: wasn’t this meant to be a nostalgic return, not a sightseeing trip? Yet, as familiar village names began to appear one after another—Minjian Village, Bansong Tun, Guiping Village, Bangui Tun—a spark of excitement took hold, and I gladly joined in.

II. Three Notebooks

Sifting through my work records from Longzhou, I was surprised to come across three notebooks. This practice likely stems from the advice of conservationist George Schaller, who advised fieldworkers to maintain a ‘three-notebook’ system: a diary, a data book, and a work journal. Reading through these densely packed pages, I felt as though I were transported back to the field fourteen years ago, revisiting the confusion, puzzlement, and frustration that accompany first encounters with rural development work. At the time, I had joined ActionAid as a ‘Phase Six Youth Development Project Practitioner’—the final cohort. The project proposal boldly outlined its aims: ‘Observer and practitioner of China’s (rural) transformation,’ ‘systematically exploring urban–rural relations,’ and ‘conducting at least one rural social survey each year.’

● Group photograph with my fellow ‘Youth Practitioners’. Third from the right in the front row is Teacher Zhang Lanying, and I am third from the left.

As a non-profit organisation, ActionAid had a rather distinctive approach to fundraising. Instead of relying on institutional foundations, it depended entirely on individual donations. Ordinary citizens in donor countries (typically developed nations) would pledge a portion of their monthly wages—often just £10 or €10—to ActionAid. These funds were then channelled into various projects to support communities in the recipient countries. Donors and recipients could also communicate directly. During my time in Longzhou, children from the supported communities would draw pictures, which ActionAid would send straight to the donors.

But by the time I arrived in Longzhou, this funding model was already under severe strain. The global financial crisis of 2008 left many of these ordinary donors unemployed. Moreover, media coverage of China’s rapid development—the moon landing, satellite launches, hosting the Olympics, and so on—convinced them that the country was fully capable of solving its own problems. As a result, they increasingly directed their donations towards poorer regions such as Africa or South Asia. (ActionAid officially withdrew from China in 2016.)

● Although ActionAid officially withdrew from China in 2016, the signboard from its former Longzhou office remains. When Teacher Zhang Lanying, who once served as the organisation’s country director for China, visited the site in 2024, a wave of mixed emotions washed over her upon seeing it.

III. What is Development? Why Develop?

Alongside the institutional constraints I faced, my confusion, bewilderment, and frustration stemmed more from a clash of perspectives regarding “development” between the organisation, the villagers, and my own sensibilities at the time. I was then practising vegetarianism (having committed to it for a year), and was deeply influenced by the concept of “simple living” championed by Qu Jifu, a Taiwanese environmentalist. I hoped to attain freedom by consuming less, rather than by earning more. For a period, I left Longzhou for an eco-orchard in Guilin, where my daily task was simply cutting clover. After each cycle of cutting, fresh clover would push through, and I would begin the next. Meanwhile, the Zhuang villages at the project site were undergoing a dramatic transformation. Buoyed by cash earned from migrant work and sugarcane cultivation, villagers channelled the bulk of their income into house construction.These new houses discarded the traditional Zhuang stilt-house design in favour of models copied from the eastern coast, proving to be “cold in winter and hot in summer”.

“BanGui Tun currently has 26 storey houses: nine single-storey, eight two-storey, two three-storey, and seven under construction; alongside 24 single-storey houses. Since they are called ‘storey houses’, why are some only one level? Because residents wish to move into new homes but lack the funds to build two floors at once. They follow the architectural style of a storey house, constructing just the ground floor initially, intending to add another once next year’s sugarcane harvest brings in revenue; those with greater means can afford to erect a three-storey house in one go. Three-storey houses make up 4%, two-storey 16%, one-storey 18%, those under construction 14%, and single-storey houses 48%. Many villagers consulted fortune-tellers, who advised that building in the Year of the Rabbit is inauspicious, so construction has been deferred until next year. It is anticipated that more than ten additional households in BanGui will commence building storey houses next year.”

——Research report: BanGui Tun, a Zhuang Village, by Yu Jiangang, 2011

● (Top) In 2011, the village still featured a number of traditional stilt houses like these, with the lower level used as a cattle pen. (Middle) By 2011, extensive building work was already under way as villagers erected ‘modern’ storey houses. (Bottom) By 2024, the prevailing architecture in BanGui Tun is the 2–4 storey house, a structure now commonplace across rural China.

The rice-paddy duck-raising initiative, an eco-agriculture project that initially looked promising, also ran into difficulties. The plan was to encourage villagers to raise ducks in their rice fields: the ducks would control weeds, and their droppings would return directly to the soil, thereby reducing the need for chemical fertilisers and pesticides. Yet villagers would frequently catch the ducks out and then spray chemicals on the paddies. I was sometimes asked by our project coordinator, Sister Liang, to go out and “supervise”.

“Went for another walk through the fields. The ‘Shanyouzhan’ rice had already flowered, while the super hybrid rice showed noticeably fewer blossoms. Just as I was preparing to head back, an older man approached, balancing baskets on a shoulder pole. I asked him where his plot was, and he pointed it out. The field, enclosed by netting, was remarkably regular in shape—rectangular, spanning about two fen (roughly 0.13 acres). Many of the rice leaves were yellow and withered. I assumed he had to catch the ducks back every evening, but he replied: ‘Just about to spray chemicals, so I’m catching the ducks back first.’ He was busy catching the ducks, and I had finally caught someone in the act!”

—23 June 2011, Field Notes

Another significant question at the time was this: after years of poverty-alleviation work by government agencies and charitable organisations, why did the majority of villagers still feel compelled to leave and seek work elsewhere? Hongcun, the largest village in Jinlong Town, has over 170 households and a population exceeding 700; the village head stated that nearly 300 had gone out to work. In Bangui Village, home to 62 households and 251 residents, 18 households had left entirely, while a further 20 to 30 households had at least one member working away from home. Most were employed in factories across Guangdong province, such as garment, toy, and electronics manufacturing plants.

“If what ActionAid and similar development organisations are doing simply involves tacitly accepting the prevailing development model while helping economically lagging regions in the west catch up with the east, then what is the point?”

—18 July 2011, Diary

On the one hand, the development projects run by charitable organisations yielded poorer results than migrant work, failing to keep villagers in the village. On the other hand, I began to feel that these projects were merely replicating the mainstream development model, clashing with my commitment to a philosophy of “simple living”. In this way, I found myself caught in a crisis of meaning.

IV. The rural population dwindles, the county town expands

By the time we left the White-headed Langur Ecotourism Area and reached Longzhou county town, dusk had already fallen. The guesthouse where we stayed happened to be right next to the Longzhou Uprising Memorial Hall, which fronts a vast square. I recognised the place immediately. Fourteen years earlier, I had arrived here with a backpack on my shoulder, having taken a train from Beijing to Nanning and then transferred to a coach for over three hours. The square was exactly where I had got off. Back then, however, the area around it was still quite desolate; today, it is crowded with newly erected apartment blocks and a variety of milk tea shops. The dining district where we ended up having dinner seemed to have sprung up overnight, leaving me entirely disorientated.

A travelling companion mentioned that Longzhou’s total population had dropped from 290,000 over a decade ago to 230,000 now, yet the county town itself had clearly expanded. It seemed everyone had moved from the rural villages into the town centre.

The next morning, Sister Liang took us for breakfast at a rice noodle shop in the Caidao She residential area. She also gave us a tour of the neighbourhood’s “food forest” setup: herb pots, longan and mango trees planted around the houses, and rooftop vegetable gardens on the “tiandi lou” buildings. Locals use the term “tiandi lou” (literally, sky-and-earth house) for self-built detached homes in the city, structures that claim their own private stretch of ground and roof.

● (Top) Uprising Square in Longzhou county town. (Bottom) Sister Liang showing us around the “food forest” in the county town.

V. The Village Primary School With Only Five Pupils Left

At last we reached the village. Our first stop was Minjian Village Primary School.

“Guiping Village Primary School is fairly well-equipped, with staff accommodation provided. It currently runs just three classes: one reception class, one Year 1, and one Year 2. Since the headteacher departed, only two veteran teachers remain. By comparison, Minjian Village Primary School allows pupils to study up to Year 5. It has a larger teaching staff, better facilities, a five-storey staff dormitory, single-storey pupil dormitories for both boys and girls, and a canteen.”

— 30 August 2011, Work Notes

Compared with other village primary schools, Minjian remained relatively well-organised at the time. I even stayed for a short while in the staff dormitory there. I remember it was the only place in the whole town with Wi-Fi, so whenever I needed to send or receive emails, I would ride my motorcycle over. Back then, some of the boarding pupils were as young as Year 1. Lacking basic life skills, they struggled to keep the dormitory beds tidy and didn’t know how to wash their own clothes. With teachers stretched thin, all they could manage was to count heads each night before bed to check for anyone missing. One promising young teacher, Mr Bi, was even seconded to the town’s central primary school. When I returned fourteen years later, the massive banyan tree, over two centuries old, still stood at the entrance. On weekends, the school was deserted, and weeds of varying heights grew through the paving stones on the playground.

Villagers told us the school now has just five pupils. Once a hive of activity, Minjian Village Primary School was ultimately forced to share the fate of closure that befell the others.

● The Minjian village school and its classroom, overgrown with weeds and now home to just five students.

VI. Idealistic Youth Revisited

Last night at a restaurant in the county town, I recognised Nong Ping (a pseudonym) at a glance. He had previously worked as a field assistant for ActionAid in Minjian Village, helping us coordinate and organise local projects and events. Nong Ping looked somewhat weary. He had returned from migrant work in Zhejiang two years ago to keep a closer eye on his children’s schooling, and now works at a local elevator factory. He said rather sheepishly, “I haven’t bought a house yet, and my marriage didn’t work out. I suppose I’ve had something of a failing life.” Back in 2011, he was still unmarried, a passionate young man in the village who took an active interest in public affairs. At the time, the issue of children left behind was already quite pressing. Nong Ping would gather these children together at his home under the guise of running an internet café. I also spotted a document posted on the wall outside their hamlet’s cultural activity room: an “Application Report on Changing the Ethnic Classification of the Budai People in Jinlongdong”, reflecting an attempt to reclaim the “Budai” ethnic identity. Due to his overly radical remarks on anti-corruption, Nong Ping was also stripped of his status as a prospective Party member.

After we left Minjian Village Primary School, Nong Ping took us to his family’s orchard. It lies on the edge of a rocky hill; during the village’s land consolidation campaign (“merging small plots into larger ones”), Nong Ping had deliberately chosen the plot furthest from the village.

The entrance actually opened onto a large livestock shed, its exterior reinforced with thick steel pipes. Inside was a jumble of odds and ends, but not a single animal in sight. Nong Ping said it was the remnants of a failed cattle-farming venture.

Beyond the shed stood a banana grove. It was my first time standing among banana plants; they towered higher than I had expected, the soil beneath them soft and loamy. Nong Ping’s mother was there removing the banana flowers. The grove was interplanted with sugar apples and a scattering of pomelo trees. At the far end lay a pond used for rearing ducks.

As we prepared to leave, he pointed to a small banyan tree growing right up against the rocky slope and said he had planted it himself. He intends to build a house under it one day, turning it into a farmstay complete with karaoke.

● (Top) Nong Ping plans to open a farmstay beneath the banyan tree he planted himself. (Bottom) Nong Ping’s mother at work in the banana grove.

VII. Returning to Banguitun

We made no stop in Jinlong Town, heading straight for Bangui Tun. The landscape remains much the same: jagged stone hills rise on either side, their foothills dotted with the few remaining fields, now densely packed with sugar cane and bisected by a narrow concrete track. Patches of paddy that once grew rice are entirely gone. Fourteen years ago, on several occasions as dusk fell and the sky darkened, I rode my motorbike along this rarely trodden road; the stone hills would suddenly loom with an eerie, imposing dread. We parked by the basketball court on the Yanbian Highway side of the village entrance. This highway, tracing the China–Vietnam border, sweeps into a broad curve at Bangui Tun. Just as it was fourteen years ago, the paddy fields inside and outside the bend still carry rice. At the far end of the fields outside the curve stands a towering stone hill. We followed the “three-sided smooth” canal—a cement-lined irrigation channel from a former ActionAid project—deep into the village. The water was clear enough to see the bottom, teeming with fish and shells.

● At the end of the “three-sided smooth” canal lies Bangui Tun, where I was based fourteen years ago.

Ms Zhang Lanying asked where the apple snails had gone. I first encountered this invasive species in Bangui more than a decade ago; it has since spread over two thousand kilometres to my own hometown, the Zhenghebeng stream on the Hangjiahu Plain. One of the reasons Action Aid introduced the ecological farming project of rearing ducks in rice paddies back then was to let the ducks feed on the snails.

Stepping into the settlement, the scene feels quite different. I remember the air once carried the mingled scent of damp earth, cattle dung, and maize stalks, occasionally cut through by the heavy perfume of longan and wampee. Now, three- and four-storey houses are far more common, and concrete paths lead straight to the doorsteps of every household within the tun. The thick bamboo groves have vanished. The clearings left after the bamboo was felled have all been fenced off into small vegetable plots around the houses—a sight familiar enough in Han Chinese villages, is it not? Yet I cannot for the life of me remember where the locals used to grow their crops more than a decade ago.

● Rice (top) and sugar cane (bottom) remain the principal crops of the Bangui settlement.

VIII. Socialising While Herding Cattle

At first, only Nong Lina and Nong Lihua recognised me. It wasn’t until someone remarked, “That’s the lad who used to herd cattle with his mesh bag,” that it suddenly dawned on everyone: ah, so it’s you! Still got that herding bag? If the slang term ‘social cow’ had existed fourteen years ago, I would have assumed it literally meant ‘socialising through herding cattle’. The herding bag in question is a green woven sack, typically slung diagonally across the back. It’s common for local elders to carry one when heading out for farm work, especially when tending to cattle. I bought mine for ten yuan from an elderly woman at the town’s rural market, and from then on I carried it daily around the village, with my notebook, mobile phone, and water bottle tucked inside.

● In 2011, I bought a mesh bag from this elderly woman for ten yuan when I visited the local market, and carried it with me everywhere. Second from the right in the afternoon photograph is me, bag slung over my shoulder, with the left-behind children of Jinlong Town.

I truly did often carry it on my back and head out to herd cattle with the older villagers. Back then, Action Aid staff and volunteers would commute between the village and the county town, having to catch the first and last scheduled minibuses. I disliked this frantic rhythm and eventually decided to move directly into the village. The organisation was then undergoing adjustments due to funding difficulties, running very few projects, with an uncertain future ahead. Compounded by my own unresolved confusion about rural work, I simply decided to go herding cattle. Summers in Longzhou are exceptionally hot, so the cattle were usually only taken out after three in the afternoon. There were two types of cattle in the area: yellow cattle and water buffalo. The yellow cattle would venture up the hills, while the larger water buffalo generally grazed only on flat land and in paddy fields. On the edge of Banguí Tún there was a village primary school, Guiping Primary. By then, it had fewer than ten pupils and just two teachers. One of them would actually lead three or four water buffalo onto the playground to graze.

“There are currently 54 cattle in Banguí Tún. They are taken out to graze by a designated person, usually an elderly villager. While herding, they also cut firewood, heading out around two or three in the afternoon and returning by six. When grass is scarce in winter, they are fed straw. Besides ploughing the fields, cattle manure is an indispensable fertiliser for sugarcane and rice production, playing a vital role. After the autumn harvest, all the village’s cattle are turned loose in the fields to breed freely.”

—— Research report: Banguí Tún: A Zhuang Village, Yu Jiangang, 2011

Because I was out herding so often, many villagers who went along began to chat with me. It was this way I met Huang Zhenjin, and through him I gained a clear picture of agricultural inputs and yields. I also got to know the village’s former party secretary, who shared much of the history of Banguí Tún. Their insights were invaluable to me in completing the research report Banguí Tún: A Zhuang Village. More often, when herding with elderly women, they seldom spoke Mandarin. I would simply keep them company. To this day, I still remember the Zhuang phrase they taught me, “lin wai,” which means to herd cattle. After spending so much time herding, my earlier confusions about rural life seemed to lift considerably.

“Even as the media reported, with ‘all the young people gone, leaving only the so-called 386199 troops’ (women, children, and the elderly), one could hardly imagine from the outside how anyone could live in such a village without their spirits breaking. Yet I saw the elderly who remained still heading out to herd cattle every afternoon, children continuing to attend school as usual, all in good order. The entire village still brimmed with the quiet rhythm of everyday life.”

—— Work journal, 25 September 2011

● The cattle can be turned out on the playground, or taken to the riverbank for a mud bath.

● The former village party secretary (left), carrying the same style of mesh bag as me while out herding, alongside the older women and aunties who graze cattle alongside us and teach me Zhuang.

IX. The Stilt-Style Tiled Houses Remain

We had lunch at Nong Lina’s. When I last left, her family were putting up a new house. On this return visit, she already has two modern homes, one for each of her sons’ families. Back when I was in Banguì village, I stayed with Na’s uncle right next door. Beneath the thin wooden floorboards lay the cattle shed, and I’d often drift off to sleep surrounded by the strong, earthy smell of cows. Because he spent most of his years working away from home, he eventually bought a house straight in the county town. Yet, while the rest of the village has been rebuilt with new concrete properties, his place has somehow preserved the traditional stilt-style tiled-roof house I lived in fourteen years ago. Climbing the stairs, I saw the familiar protective talisman pasted at the doorway, the two large beds, and the traditional clay stove in the kitchen still holding the embers of yesterday’s firewood. It all felt exactly as it had! During lunch, we took a brief moment to catch up. I mentioned that I now have a habit of adding crushed garlic to hot oil when stir-frying greens (a practice my family in Zhejiang still refuses to accept) – something I learned from Na. I also picked up how to prepare the fermented bamboo shoots used in famous Guangxi rice noodles.

After lunch, Teacher Zhang suggested we sit down for a roundtable to discuss how the village had changed over the years. Sister Liang asked everyone to form a circle; then she suddenly turned to me, almost issuing a command: “You take the minutes.” The atmosphere instantly shifted into full workshop-facilitator mode.

● The house and beds I stayed in fourteen years ago are still here, with the cattle shed right beneath the upstairs room.

● Lunch at Nong Lina’s (left). Fermented bamboo shoots are also a dish I learned to prepare here (right).

X. Changes in the Village

What has changed in the village? The roads and houses have grown wider and more substantial. Sugarcane now covers more land and yields heavier harvests, and the village environment has become cleaner and more refreshing. The women have grown notably more self-assured: “If a man wants to scold me, he needs to earn the right to.” Most surprisingly, an aluminium deposit was discovered a few years ago beneath Bangui Tun and the neighbouring villages. They truly have wealth lying right under their feet. The contractors who leased the mining rights must pay the villagers an annual fee of 30,000 yuan per mu.

Yet, as cash incomes have risen, many find themselves wrestling with a sense of unease, feeling “not as happy as we used to be.”

Land has been consolidated and sugarcane cultivation has improved, but there is now “work to do from dawn till dusk, with no end in sight.” “The women’s groups used to gather to sing and dance.” “We could sleep until three or four in the afternoon, only heading out to the fields when the sun was setting. It was so comfortable.”

As the younger generation moves to the city, rural families are shouldering heavier burdens for mortgages, education, and healthcare. “Now, antenatal check-ups are required every single month; it wasn’t like that before.” “University costs 50,000 yuan a term.”

● Top: A group photo of me with Nong Lina and my mother-in-law. The women’s group from those days is still active. Bottom: Sister Liang is in the back row, far left. The woman in the blue shirt in the centre of the front row is Teacher Zhang Lanying.

XI. The Water Buffaloes Are Gone

One of the most striking changes for me was the absence of water buffaloes in the village. Including the yellow cattle, Bangui Village once had 54 head of cattle in total. As village architecture shifted from traditional Zhuang stilt houses to modern multi-storey buildings, the ground-level spaces that once housed the buffaloes disappeared. Most of the village’s water buffaloes have now vanished (I saw only one on the day of my visit), and it is true that the village roads have become noticeably cleaner without the buffalo dung. Whether due to my own past experiences herding cattle here, or out of a fellow silkworm farmer’s empathy for these animals, I deeply regret their disappearance from the village. Consequently, in the meeting notes requested by Sister Liang, I wrote:

“Water buffaloes serve as the primary draught animals for paddy fields and remain a vital source of traditional organic fertiliser. Their diet consists mainly of wild herbs and grasses, meaning there are no feed costs (aside from the time spent grazing them). Furthermore, with future study tours, nature education, and tourism in mind, buffaloes also represent a unique cultural landscape. How to maintain village cleanliness while preserving buffalo culture is a question well worth pondering.”

Despite the many challenges, Sister Liang remains keen on further developing ecological agriculture in Bangui Village, suggesting that we explore the cultivation of ecological rice and sugar cane.

● The rice paddies remain, and the heritage seeds are still here, but the water buffaloes are gone.

XII. Na, Ban, and Kapok Trees

Leaving Bangui Village, we passed through Jinlong Town once again. I couldn’t resist asking to step out for a quick look. Weaving through an alley, I spotted my old residence still standing where it had been, though its teal door remained firmly shut. That single-storey building had served as both my accommodation and a multi-purpose space: a reading room for left-behind children, a local produce shop for the village, and a meeting centre for women’s groups. Next door had once been a cattle market. On market days, I’d always be roused from sleep by the clamour of people and livestock mingling in the streets. Now the cattle market is gone, replaced by a stylish two-bay townhouse with large floor-to-ceiling windows, springing up from the ground. We hurried on. Along the route, rocky hills rose in successive layers. Apart from the dense sugarcane plantations that blotted out the sky, the landscape near and far was a patchwork of emerald-green rice paddies. In the Zhuang language, “Na” denotes a paddy field, while “Ban” means a village. No wonder the road signs are all combinations of these two characters: Bansong, Bayan, Nanong, Nakan, and so on.

There were also plenty of kapok trees lining the road. Teacher Zhang mentioned a quote from Mr Yan Yangchu: “Kapok trees bloom in the Philippines during its hottest season. Mr Yan likened rural community workers to kapok flowers, blooming all the more brilliantly under the most trying conditions.”

From May to November, Longzhou in my memory was always oppressively hot and humid.

● The house where I once stayed in Jinlong Town remains (left, taken in 2024), but the reading room for left-behind children, the local village produce shop, and the women’s group meeting centre that were housed within are no longer there (right, taken in 2011).

● Jinlong Town is still standing (left, taken in 2024), but the former cattle market has vanished (right, taken in 2011).

XIII. Between Humans and Monkeys

That evening, we were taken to the reserve once more to see the monkeys. On this occasion, they were slow lorises, a small primate species now listed under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. The way to spot them is to sweep a torch across the canopy; their eyes reflect the beam back as two distinct red dots. The patch of land where these slow lorises dwell is, in fact, farmland, planted thick with sweet potatoes, maize, and fruit trees. It comes to mind that beneath the limestone outcrops inhabited by the white-headed langurs, the fields are equally given over to sugarcane. The proximity between human settlement and wildlife is remarkably small.

Teacher Zhang noted that previously, ActionAid had neither run projects focused on animal conservation nor possessed the awareness to do so.

Reflecting on more than a decade of rural development work, we seem to have been too hasty, too rigidly linear, striving to “achieve everything in one fell swoop,” while lacking a gentler, more nuanced perspective.

● Night-time observation of slow lorises.

XIV. The Daogong of Two Thousand Years

On the final day of the itinerary, we travelled to Ningming to view the ‘Zuojiang Huashan Rock Art Cultural Landscape’. The rock paintings adorn the sheer cliff faces along the Ming River, depicting reddish-brown anthropomorphic figures in frog-like poses—elbows bent and raised, legs spread wide, knees bent in a half-squat, with swords and blades at their sides. Alongside the frontal frog figures are numerous profile humans, dogs, and bronze drums. The scene is both solemn and joyous, recording the sacrificial ceremonies and shamanistic rituals of the ancient Luo-Yue people. Most of the figures lack facial features and other details; only one type of figure possesses eyes—the tribal shamans.

“The village secretary told me his family has always been Buddhist, so they avoid beef and dog meat. His father is a Daogong, and he was extremely strict in raising his children. For instance, if you are working for someone, you must never take even a single cent more than you are owed; if you do, you have to return it. Here, a Daogong is summoned for weddings, funerals, births, and the building of new homes. The reason every household has a scarecrow in its courtyard is that the village is currently observing a funeral. These mourning rites can last anywhere from three to five days, or over ten days. I asked the secretary, ‘If it is summer and the body lies in the house for over ten days, will it not stink?’ He replied, ‘Because the Daogong chants the incantations, it absolutely will not.’”

——18 September 2011, field notes

The villagers refer to those who preside over traditional ceremonies as ‘Daogong’, a role that holds a distinct place within the community. Through oral recitation and song, the Daogong have preserved the Zhuang creation epic, *Buluotuo*, to this day.

● Petroglyphs on the cliff face along the Ming River, dating back over 2,000 years.

XV. Sister Liang

Before heading to the airport, Sister Liang suddenly asked on a boat along the Ming River: “What more can we do for the countryside?”

After ActionAid withdrew, Sister Liang remained, serving as Longzhou’s final coordinator. We have not kept in close touch given the distance, having met only two or three times over the past fifteen years. I understand she later moved back from the county town to live in Bangui Tun, with her daughter joining her to attend a primary school in the nearby town. She established an agricultural cooperative in the village, championing urban–rural exchange between Bangui Tun and Nanning, the provincial capital. Scrolling through her WeChat Moments, I’ve seen she continually attends various training programmes. This ongoing learning has deepened her grasp of the land and farming, inspiring her to take us on a ‘discovery’ of the food forest network within a typical residential estate.

For a variety of reasons, she was eventually forced to relocate back to the county town. The cooperative’s management also proved difficult. She now continues her frontline rural development work with a charitable organisation.

In the second half of our roundtable, Sister Liang did express a desire to carry on developing ecological agriculture in Bangui Tun. However, she was not ‘overly enthusiastic’, nor did she set out a schedule.

She seems to be trusting in, and waiting for, the village’s own return.

● Sister Liang (far right in the photo below) in her residence and office in Bangui Tun, converted from an old house.

XVI. “Bu Luotuo”

The common folk had nothing to eat

The people could not sustain their lives

So Heaven sent down the late-ripening rice seeds

The immortals brought the japonica rice seeds

Seeds tucked into the waistband were brought back

Rice panicles hidden on his person were brought back

He patrolled the slope behind the houses

He surveyed the ridge beyond the ravines

He took up his sickle to cut the wild grass

He took up his hoe to break the fallow ground

He wielded the foot plough to turn the soil

He called on great water buffaloes to pull the plough

Four plots of land were cleared

Four paddies were formed

At the Start of Spring, the rice seeds were to be sown

Seeds scattered across the four swidden plots

Seeds planted in the four paddies

One seed, sown in the mountain forest, grew into taro

One seed, cast into the mountain gully, grew into sweet potato

One seed, planted on the mountain, grew into plum

One seed, scattered on the threshing floor, grew into peach

One seed, sown at the mountain’s edge, grew into buckwheat

One seed, cast into the paddy field, grew into rice

From then on, the common folk had food to eat

The people could at last rest and recover

In those days they had food to eat

Yet still no clothes to wear

They draped leaves over their bodies for cover

King Suichao took his seat upon the throne at night

King Suichao prayed to Heaven once more

Heaven bestowed seeds of hemp

King Suichao taught the people

At the Start of Spring, the hemp seeds were to be sown

The hemp could be harvested by the sixth month

To harvest the hemp, they took up knives to cut

Or daggers to sever

The hemp was twisted into strands of thread

The hemp thread was wound into yarn

Taken and wound onto the spinning reel

Taken and placed on the loom

The yarn was woven into cloth

The cloth was stitched into garments

From then on, the common folk had skirts to wear

The people had clothes to wear

— Excerpt from the Zhuang Creation Epic “Bu Luotuo”

XVII. Who Needs Whom?

I told Mr Zhang, admitting that it’s we who need the countryside, not the other way round, isn’t a loss of face, is it?

XVIII. Seeking the Soul of Grain

As one of the earliest peoples to cultivate rice, the ancient Luo-Yue believed that rice seedlings possessed a soul. When crops failed, it was attributed to mischievous field spirits that frightened the rice soul, causing it to scatter. To ensure a thriving harvest, the fleeing spirit had to be called back.

As practitioners working in rural communities, we have come to believe that all our efforts are ultimately a search for the countryside’s lost spirit—

Every child’s painting mailed to an unknown donor

Every last bus rushing back to the county town at 4 p.m.

Every field notebook

Every youth development programme

Every rice–duck farming cycle

Every rural school

Every protected white-headed langur

Every blooming kapok flower

Every food forest planted beneath the county town’s Tiandilou buildings

More than a decade after everyone who had travelled from afar had moved on, the villages nestled among these mountains continued along their own rhythm. Much like the rock art etched into the cliffs of the Ming River, they remained exactly as they were when we first arrived.

It turns out the countryside’s spirit was never lost; it remained right where it was, calling us back and helping us become better versions of ourselves. The refrain from the Zhuang creation epic *The Legend of Buluotuo* seems to echo once more:

“The grain soul flees in every direction,

The grain soul scatters far and wide,

The King erects a flower shrine,

To call the grain soul home,

Return, O grain soul,

Come back, O grain soul.”

Yu Jiangang

First draft: 21 October 2024

Finalised: 8 January 2025

Foodthink Contributor

Yu Jiangang

Born and raised in Zhenghebang, a silk-weaving village in the Jiangnan region, Yu graduated in 2008 and worked in brand consulting in Beijing. Driven by a deep concern for rural communities, he resigned in 2011 to intern at the Little Donkey Farm. He subsequently volunteered in rural development projects across Zhuang villages along the Guangxi–Vietnam border. Upon returning home, he co-founded ‘Mei He Yu’ with his wife, Mei Yuhui, focusing on the production and heritage transmission of finely crafted silk quilts. Their aim is to revitalise China’s agricultural and sericultural intangible cultural heritage, forging new traditions from ancient crafts. WeChat Official Account: Mei He Yu

Editor: Tianle