The Story Behind Wainna | Can Young People Who Left Farming and Song Still Return to the Countryside?
Foodthink Says
Foodthink’s logo is a microphone sprouting from a field. How much power do voices from the fields hold? How far can they travel? What echoes might they summon? Answers to these questions may require many more summers, many more cycles of spring planting and autumn harvest, to uncover.
Today, we revisit this podcast episode to explore what could not be fully articulated on a variety show: how decades of agricultural transformation and social change have reshaped their hometowns; and how one can sustainably live in the countryside today, which touches not only on personal livelihood but also on discovering the deeper value of rural life.
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Episode Guests
Bānóng
Lead creator and vocalist of Wayina. Albums include *The Trilogy of Na Songs* and *The River Without a Name*. In 2019, Guangxi Normal University Press published *Head Down to Farm, Head Up to Sing*, a collection of his long poems, lyrics, paintings, and interviews. In 2021, he became a partner in Foodthink’s “Union Grain Initiative”, establishing a community seed bank in his hometown.
Shíbā
Originally from Guilin, a musician invited by Bānóng, and lead vocalist of the band Yi.
Episode Hosts
Tianle
Founding Editor of Foodthink and Convener of the Beijing Organic Farmers’ Market.
Wang Hao
Editor at Foodthink.
I. The Musician Who Returned to Farm
Wang Hao: Could you introduce your other role to our listeners?
Banong: I previously compiled my photographs and poems, which were later published under the title *Looking Down to Farm, Looking Up to Sing*. This embodies the so-called “half-farming, half-X” lifestyle, so currently I’m in a state of farming while creating music.
Tianle: You lived in Guangzhou for a while, doing music?
Banong: Yes. I was mainly working in design in Guangzhou for eight or nine years; music was just something I dabbled in occasionally. In the end, I chose to return home to live a “half-farming, half-singing” life. I started going back to farm in 2012, but back then I’d leave after planting and only return for the harvest. By 2015, I finally decided to go back for good.
Tianle: So it was “half-working, half-singing” first, then “half-farming, half-singing”. But why did you choose to return to your hometown to farm?
Banong: I’d been in the city for eight or nine years. I’d learned what I needed to learn, and I’d visited every exhibition and place Guangzhou had to offer. I felt there was nothing left there to help me progress. If I am to go on living in this world, there is nothing left for me to see in the city. I felt the only truly interesting things must still be out in the hills and the countryside. Besides, my parents are getting on in years, and I wanted to find a way to return and care for them.
II. Behind the city’s apparent richness may lie a bubble
Banong: Back when I was still in Guangzhou, we used to go out to the suburbs for leisure. At the time, I thought cities were great; you had everything, and I really appreciated that kind of urban abundance. Then, on one occasion, we visited a suburban farm-stay and wandered through the vegetable plots. I noticed there wasn’t a single weed in sight.
Honestly, it felt a bit off. It was so pristine it looked almost artificial, like plastic. Knowing the countryside as well as I did, it struck me how vastly different this was from genuine rural vegetable patches. I saw plenty of small plastic bags and bottles left lying around inside the rooms. It suddenly dawned on me: things like wet markets, which I used to regard as so rich and abundant, might just be an illusion. The produce sold there comes from the suburbs, and it’s sprayed with all sorts of chemicals—hence the complete absence of weeds. What appears so bustling and prosperous might actually be a bubble, masking underlying issues that are genuinely concerning. After that, I began gathering information and came across ecological farming and traditional varieties. Slowly, my perspective and horizons began to open up.
When I returned in 2012 to start building a house and setting up a recording space, I began searching for our local traditional varieties. My mum said those old rice strains were basically gone from our area.
Eventually, my drummer mentioned he’d eaten a type of red rice at a relative’s place. It turned out that because their home was up on a mountain peak with a very specific climate, hybrid strains wouldn’t grow well there, so they had to stick to traditional varieties, which is why they’d been preserved. That was the first traditional strain I found, and it was quite a struggle. Later, I connected with some charitable organisations and discovered just how many varieties exist. I’m growing so many now, it’s exhausting me. (Laughs)
Wang Hao: You must have quite a collection of traditional varieties by now.
Banong: I got plenty from farming friends. In the end, I’ve kept over twenty kinds. I only actively grow four of them; for the rest, I’m mainly focused on conservation.
Tianle: What made you decide to take on this seed conservation work?
Banong: Well, finding them myself was so difficult. At one point, my drummer was about to give up, so I kept calling him, saying, “No, please, keep looking.” Because it was so hard to track them down, I really cherish every traditional variety I manage to acquire. If they were lost, they’d be almost impossible to recover. I’m also very grateful to everyone at those organisations.
Tianle: So it was really the traditional varieties that led you to connect with these groups.
Banong: Exactly. They used to invite me to meetings, which I never liked going to. But the moment they mentioned variety exchange, I’d be there.
Tianle: Given how many varieties you’re growing now, what do you think sets traditional strains apart from conventional ones?
Banong: My friends all say the cooked rice has a much stronger aroma. Of course, our traditional varieties come in many types; some are fragrant, while others might not be. I mainly grow them for my own use. For example, I cultivate two special types: purple rice and red rice. The red rice is good for congee, and the purple rice for sweet fermented rice wine. For white rice, which is the staple, I’ll pick one with the right grain quality and texture and grow a bit more of it, gradually seeing which suits my land best. Since I can’t grow vast quantities anyway, my varieties basically cater to a small, niche group.
III. How the Use of Pesticides and Chemical Fertilisers Has Changed the World
Shiba: I currently live in Guilin and busk on the streets. I usually sing for an hour at night after the urban management officers clock off. Whenever I get the chance, I go back home to help out.
Tianle: So your parents are in your hometown in Guilin.
Shiba: The land is actually out in the county, quite remote in the countryside. I go back for about a month or two every year. Whenever there’s farm work to be done at home, I head back.
Tianle: When exactly is the farming season in Guilin?
Shiba: It’s spread across several months. For instance, I go back in March, around the Qingming Festival, to sow seeds. By May, it’s time to transplant rice seedlings. Once that’s done, things quiet down until harvest, which usually happens around August or September.
Tianle: Do you still weed by hand?
Shiba: My father still relies on conventional herbicides, along with chemical fertilisers and pesticides. That’s one of the reasons I want to go back and help shift their practices.
Tianle: Why do you think a change is necessary? He already works himself to the bone.
Shiba: Because I’ve seen the environmental changes firsthand. Back when I was a kid, the paddy fields were full of fish and leeches. I saw reports of ancient species found in Jiangsu, and back in my childhood, you’d find those kinds of creatures everywhere in the fields.
Tianle: Did you and the others have to work in the fields when you were little?
Shiba: I’ve been working since I was little. When the adults were harvesting rice, we’d often stay home to cook.
I used to look after the cattle when I was young. Every evening, before the cows came back, we’d carry dry straw into the barn and spread it out thick and dry so they could sleep on it. By the next morning, the straw would be completely soaked through with their waste. Day after day, this would build up into a thick layer of natural fertiliser at the bottom.When spring came, we’d carry the straw to the fields in loads, using shoulder poles. We called it “rice-flour” because each strand of straw was coated with fermented cow dung.
Nowadays, we don’t keep cattle anymore. After clearing the vegetation, we just run a machine over the field to plough it. When it’s time to harvest, a professional combine harvester comes in. It turns the crop straight into threshed grain, which we simply take out to dry.
Tianle: So without the cattle, there’s no more fertiliser.
Shiba: Exactly. It’s just chemical fertilisers now.
Tianle: So you think there’s far less wildlife in the fields now.
Shiba: Yeah, very little. It used to be teeming with aquatic life. Now there’s barely anything in the water, just a few insects crawling on the surface.
Tianle: What do you think that signifies?
Banong: Honestly, ordinary folks don’t tend to think too deeply about it. From a purely intuitive standpoint, I just feel the fields have lost a lot of their charm. When I was little, we could catch fatty grasshoppers to roast and eat while harvesting grain. There were all sorts of insects, frogs, and mantises. Now, during harvest, you hardly come across much of anything. It’s just quiet.
Tianle: Isn’t that just more efficient, though?
Banong: True, but for children, playing in the fields isn’t any fun anymore.
Wang Hao: Do the villagers think this is a bad thing, then?
Shiba: Since the young people don’t farm anymore, the older generation just sees it as highly efficient.
Tianle: Beyond just losing that sense of fun, what does the disappearance of creatures from farmland—what we call the loss of biodiversity—actually mean?
Banong: I think unless you actively pay attention or have been influenced by environmental education, you genuinely wouldn’t notice or care.
Wang Hao: Right, so that means external environmental education is still necessary to shift that mindset.
Banong: Well, I’ve always lived in the village.They don’t see it as an issue, but they do feel it practically when it directly affects their needs. Take the older ladies in our village, for example. They often come to my front yard to harvest plantain for its anti-inflammatory medicinal properties. They’ve told me that after everyone else started using pesticides, the plantain disappeared from their areas. Since the whole village is spraying, they have to come to my place to pick it. I suppose they only really grasp the contrast when they actually need something like this. Otherwise, they’d still find herbicides far more convenient.
Tianle: Shiba, you haven’t had any formal training in ecological farming from outside. What’s your own take on it?
Shiba: I was simply born into an environment that was naturally ecological. Our paddy fields used to be full of fish. The fields connected directly to the river, so whenever the water levels rose, the fish would swim in, and we’d cast our nets to catch them. Back then, when ploughing the fields, the draft oxen would roll around and break up the mud. After that, you could easily scoop up a washbasin full of fish.
I still remember the first time we applied that bright red granular pesticide. The fields were already flooded and muddy, so the soil would settle first, then we’d spread the fertiliser. Once the pesticide was scattered across the water, dead fish and frogs started floating to the surface. Corpses of all kinds covered the entire field. I wasn’t very old back then, probably still in middle school.I was truly struck by it. I said, our world has changed—it really has.
Wang Hao: So it really struck you in a very direct way.
Tianle: But I think it takes a certain sensitivity to realise something is wrong, or to feel genuinely unsettled by it.
Shiba: Before I knew it, I felt I had already lost my hometown. My true homeland was a fertile land of fish and rice, with clear rivers where we used to swim. Now eucalyptus has taken over the hillsides, and soon our rivers will dry up completely.
I have experienced the loss of home twice over. After graduating in 2010, I travelled to a Tibetan village in Yunnan—a very traditional, untouched place. There were only fifteen households. Much like where I’m from, they cut every blade of grass to feed pigs and cattle. The upper floor was for living quarters, while the ground floor housed the cows, pigs, and chickens. That was more than a decade ago. Then vineyards came along, and the pesticide spraying began.Later, when mobile phones arrived, they were connected to a wider world. I found myself watching everyone scrolling through Douyin. Back then, we’d dance every day as we worked.
Tianle: So it was a Tibetan village, a place you used to visit regularly.
Shiba: Exactly. They’re practically family. After I started wandering from place to place, I ended up helping them look after their pigs.
IV. The character for ‘agriculture’ has ‘music’ on top
Wang Hao: Exactly. That’s what made me think of singing and farm work going hand in hand.
Banong: Well, when I chose Banong as my stage name, I deliberately went for the traditional character for farming, 農. The traditional character for farming, 農, has 曲 (a tune) right at the top. My approach is just like that of the traditional mountain singers. You know, if you go to a Dong village or deeper into the mountains to see the Zhuang people, their local mountain singers do it exactly the same way. When there’s a wedding or a funeral, they call the singers in. But day to day, they look after themselves—they’re handy with carpentry, they know how to farm. Farming is just the sort of work where you can easily sing along as you go.
So back in the old days, peasants singing while they worked was simply a way of life. But the simplified character, 农, just looks like a plough. It’s purely about labour.
Tianle: Right. I’ve noticed that too when attending events in the southwest. The farmers from ethnic minorities who come along all have a special skill.
Banong: If you can’t sing, you might not stand a chance of finding a girlfriend out in the mountains. (Laughter)
Wang Hao: But your music is different from traditional mountain songs, isn’t it?
Shiba: I think it still carries the spirit of traditional mountain songs.
Wang Hao: Did you deliberately set out to collect those materials or draw inspiration from them?
Banong: Definitely. When I go to the countryside, I’ll look at the layout of old houses, ask about heritage crop varieties, and see what songs they know. That’s the kind of thing I do out there.
Wang Hao: So how do the locals around you view your music?
Banong: Earlier this year, I actually performed in our Nandan County for the first time. I never used to go back for things like that. But a classmate of mine works at the publicity department, so I had to give him some face and put on a show. The cultural centre director and the publicity chief really liked me. They said our county’s culture was counting on us to promote it. They’ve got lots of old instruments sitting in a museum with nobody who knows how to play them, and they told me it was all down to us.
Banong: Back home, I tend to perform with a heavier local dialect.
V. Those Singing Folk Songs on Social Media
Wang Hao: But they still enjoy singing and dancing, right?
Banong: Actually, I wouldn’t call it that bleak. I once saw an auntie at my grandmother’s holding her phone. She mentioned they have a group chat. Some members are in Shenzhen, mostly helping out with childcare for their children. They’d just keep trading folk songs back and forth in the group. After all, they’re older folks.
When I’m scrolling through Douyin, I notice quite a few young people singing folk songs too. They’ve formed lots of young duos or groups to perform this style. Many are actually teaming up just to gain online traction. I’ve found plenty of them on Kuaishou as well, all singing folk songs. It’s actually quite fun to watch.
Without that income or online reach, they likely wouldn’t do it. There’s an abundance of pop music being sung nowadays. But since people clearly enjoy hearing them perform folk songs, I see it as a positive. They’re all handsome and stylish. You’d never have pictured them singing something so rustic. I don’t know where all this is heading, but at least I see new ideas taking shape.
Tianle: Would you ever upload your own?
Banong: Oh, I don’t think I could compete with them. (General laughter.)
VI. Food, Clothing, Housing and Transport in the Village
In my daily life, I favour things that are natural and comfortable, which extends to eating organic produce. When I’m away, I tell people I’m vegetarian because I don’t trust meat from outside. In reality, when I’m back home, I do eat meat—home-reared animals and fish from our local river. But when I’m out and about, I stick to saying I’m vegetarian.
Tianle: You’re incredibly particular about it.
Banong: In the countryside, I really appreciate the traditional layout of rural homes. They’re genuinely beautiful. You have a front courtyard, a rear yard, a small vegetable plot at the back. It’s a space where you can keep chickens, build up compost, and even house a shrine to the Earth God.It’s a cohesive system. But when people knock everything down to build new multi-storey houses, all of that vanishes. The paths where ducks once wandered, the spots where chickens pecked for grain, the rear courtyards—they’re all gone, replaced by four- or five-storey concrete blocks. A great deal of that integrated ecosystem is simply lost.
So now, I make a point of seeking out farmhouses that have preserved their traditional layouts. Living there, you feel connected to so much. Every season brings a new connection: the vegetable patch in the backyard, a few fruit trees nearby, a duck wandering around, a rooster crowing. It’s a rich, interconnected web of daily life.
VII. University Students Who Didn’t “Jump Out of the Farm Gate”
Tianle: Fair enough, but you did have what’s considered a “respectable job” in the city. I know there’s that idea of “jumping out of the farm gate” – leaving behind the hardships of rural life. So how do your parents feel about you returning, or preparing to take over your parents’ land?
Shiba: The first time I went back with long hair, the whole village started talking. People were saying, “Bozi has turned into a girl.” Bozi is my childhood nickname. They kept saying Bozi had become a young lady, and everyone came to have a look. My dad really lost face. He said something that cut deep: “If I’d known you were going to end up like this, you shouldn’t have come back.” Now they’ve mostly got used to it.
Tianle: Well, Banong, your hair is short, so that’s not an issue.
Banong: I prepared a bit better. I actually told them I had things to keep me busy out there, so they wouldn’t fuss too much. Besides, they don’t really understand what I do anyway. I told them I was still taking on work, to put their minds at ease. As the saying goes, “the land raises its own people.” In our part of the world, we don’t always speak so directly. So I just kept them reassured and eased them into it gradually.
But things are quite good now. They see that I’m back home and that our livelihood isn’t suffering.
VIII. Young people have lost the ability to live in the village
Banong: I’ve had to make certain adjustments and preparations to my way of life.For a start, I’m only a part-time farmer; I don’t rely on agriculture to make a living.
Farming to merely survive is straightforward. Plant a chestnut tree, and in five years it’ll bear fruit that you can eat for a century.So, in terms of sheer survival, agriculture offers the most stable returns in the world. But if you’re trying to turn it into cash, using it as a livelihood to trade for social value, that’s a brutal proposition. You work in the fields for six months and only get four yuan a jin for rice. But head to a factory, earn two or three hundred a day, and you could make a year’s worth of rice in a single week.
But let’s not misunderstand: I farm to maintain a baseline of survival. When things are quiet, I can write songs or do some design work. It’s like the old craftsmen in rural areas: they grow food for themselves, but if you need a carpenter, they’ll take on woodwork.
Tianle: You mentioned you used to have a crew of younger mates and were their leader. Does the leader coming back have an impact on them?
Banong: They’re grown men; they won’t just follow my lead. I’m not the boss, either—everyone is their own boss. I once had my cousin come to the farm with me, hoping he’d stay. After two months, he still wanted to go back to the factory. He said it was too desolate, with no entertainment or anything fun to do.
As I mentioned earlier,we didn’t learn how to sing and dance in school. Really, “singing and dancing” is just a metaphor for how we’ve lost the ability to entertain our inner lives the way we used to.When we finish our studies and return, our inner lives should ideally be rich and full, yet we come back not knowing what to do. We need to learn how to coexist here, so we don’t feel empty living in the mountains or the village, and don’t rely on BBQ stalls or karaoke bars to feel like life is happening.
Tianle: But first, you need a rich inner world and the capacity for creation. If young people lack that cultural grounding, they won’t necessarily be as resilient as you.
Banong: Exactly. That’s why so many can’t stay; they don’t know what to do and ultimately have to return to the city.
Wang Hao: In truth, the cultural grounding they now possess is no longer fully suited to rural life.
Banong: As I said, we were originally from rural areas, but because we went to school, we drifted away from farming. We no longer know which plants are medicinal herbs or what animals are native to the area. If you still knew how to gather herbs or observe wild bees, you’d find it fascinating and could stay here longer.
But having left traditional agriculture, they had to go to school to absorb a new system, meaning they had to abandon the traditional education of the countryside. Yet in this new education, they didn’t learn to sing and dance either. When I say sing and dance, I mean self-amusement; finding ways to entertain oneself is actually a means of enriching one’s inner life. So, in the end, their only option is to go work in a factory.
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Photos: Banong, Wu Jiao, Feng Nianqing
Transcription & Editing: Wang Hao