Returning home to grow potatoes: what is an post-80s female music graduate after?

In recent years, cases of university students returning home to start businesses are no longer rare. With the rapid development of our country's agricultural modernization, a new force of post-80s and post-90s agricultural workers has emerged.

Before talking on the phone and only hearing her voice without seeing her in person, the reporter had always been curious: what kind of image would a young woman have who studied music for four years at university, gave up a stable job after graduation, and returned to her hometown to grow potatoes? It was not until the 24th day of the 12th lunar month, near Spring Festival, that a meeting in a plastic greenhouse on the east side of National Highway 105 in Huangzhuang Village, Xiaozhi Town, Pingyin County, completely dispelled the reporter's doubts: this "post-80s" young woman before my eyes had neither the burly build of a traditional farmer nor the out-of-touch quality many people associate with art students. "Sometimes if you don't push yourself, you don't know how much potential you really have." Zhang Yanyan, who resolutely gave up a decent job and chose to return home to grow potatoes when her family faced hardship and life presented a choice, said this.

Compared with many young people who harbor entrepreneurial dreams and are determined to carve out a world of their own, Zhang Yanyan's return home to start a business was actually forced out of necessity. In 2013, Zhang Yanyan's father was hospitalized after a sudden cerebral hemorrhage. This illness was no small matter: the more than 50 mu of potato greenhouses the family had worked hard to develop the previous year fell into a situation where they might be transferred to others or left to go to waste. "If at this time we transferred the more than 50 mu of greenhouses to someone else, no matter how I calculated it in my heart, I felt it would be too much of a pity.

But if I kept running them myself, her father had already lost his ability to work, and relying only on me, a rural woman, just thinking about it felt exhausting!" Zhang Yanyan's mother, Wang Yuzhi, said when recalling the situation at the time. Yanyan said she wanted to come back, but the old couple refused no matter what. Their child had studied at university outside for four years, and after graduating would come back to farm with her parents; even the neighbors' gossip made the whole family unable to hold their heads up. However, the cruel reality left the family no longer able to care about face. Zhang Yanyan, who had already worked for several years at an education and training institution in Zhengzhou, amid opposition from her husband and mother-in-law, "jumped" back through the farm gate.

Because of large-scale planting and rich management experience, the potatoes grown by Zhang Yanyan's parents fetched high prices and large yields, and more than 50 mu of land could bring in an income of more than 100,000 yuan per year, but Zhang Yanyan still had the idea of expanding the scale and increasing efficiency. Although her vision for the future won her family's support, where would the several hundred thousand yuan needed to expand the scale be raised? At first, because a great deal had already been spent during her father's illness, most relatives and friends were unwilling to lend her money. Unwilling to give up, Zhang Yanyan finally got a bank loan and at last gathered enough money for the land transfer fee.

On the basis of the original 50 mu of land with greenhouses, Zhang Yanyan contracted another 150 mu of land, expanding the greenhouse potato planting area to 200 mu, and the family income was quite considerable. Seeing that the girl had achieved success in farming, Wang Yuzhi's idea of wanting Zhang Yanyan to develop her career elsewhere also loosened. The way the surrounding neighbors looked at Zhang Yanyan became completely different as well. The 200 mu of potato greenhouses alone required hiring seventeen or eighteen women for ordinary work, and during sowing and harvest even more labor was needed. Rural women who once gathered around card games and televisions as soon as the 12th lunar month arrived now had a way to earn money through work. Nearby neighbors all felt: "In this era, no matter what you do, as long as you are willing to bend your back and work, and are willing to pay with your own two hands, there is nothing in the world that cannot be done. On this point, Zhang Yanyan has set a good example for us." Zhang Yanyan working inside the potato greenhouse.