Shen Dongliang's transformation from a big PhD in a government office to a small pupil in a village
???? From a government office "big PhD" to a village "small pupil"
-- A profile of Shen Dongliang, first secretary of Puya Village, Wanzhou District, Chongqing
Shen Dongliang already completely regards himself as a Puya native. When he returns to Beijing or is away on business, whenever he chats with people, within two or three sentences he is back at Puya Village; before he knows it his eyes light up, and now and then a few genuine Puya expressions slip out of his mouth.
Shen Dongliang is a cadre of the State Council Three Gorges Project Construction Committee Executive Office. In August 2015 he was selected by the office to serve in Wanzhou District, Chongqing, as assistant to the town mayor of Dazhou Town and first secretary of Puya Village. Located by the Yangtze River, Puya Village is a municipal-level poverty-stricken village in Chongqing and one of the 11 resettlement poverty-stricken villages designated for paired assistance by the State Council Three Gorges Project Construction Committee Executive Office. Of the village's 1763 people, 44% are Three Gorges resettlers. At the beginning of 2015, there were 81 registered poor households with 209 people, accounting for 11.85% of the village population.
Shen Dongliang, who arrived in Puya Village pulling a large suitcase of books, made his mobile phone number public as soon as he got to the village. This "big PhD" from a government office quickly found himself "surrounded" by all kinds of information. Villagers from Puya Village, Dazhou Town, and even neighboring towns and villages came to Shen Dongliang to "solve problems" -- family squabbles, quarrels in front of and behind the houses. Whether they came directly, called, or sent text messages, Shen Dongliang would write down every problem the villagers reported. Whatever he could solve himself, he solved to the greatest extent possible; whatever he could not solve, he reported upward truthfully; and for matters that genuinely did not conform to policy requirements, he patiently explained them clearly. Seeing how serious the new "first secretary" was, village Party branch secretary Ping Xinghua and village director Tang Hexiang were happy, but also could not help feeling anxious: if everything were handled this way, where would there be time to do other work?
Yet from these seemingly trivial problems Shen Dongliang saw the gaps in himself. "Before, I had never really worked at the grassroots level; what I had stored up was all macro policy. How to concretely implement these policies at the grassroots level is indeed a weak spot for me." Shen Dongliang quickly changed from a doctoral graduate of a famous university into a modest, eager-to-learn "small pupil" in Puya Village. Whenever he had a chance, he consulted other town and village cadres; whenever he had time, he went to the town library to look up relevant materials; at night he either read materials or searched for information online. "These things not only have to be learned and understood by oneself, but also have to be explained clearly and plainly to the villagers. One must listen more, look more, record more, study more, and think more," Shen Dongliang said.
On his 3rd day in Puya Village, Shen Dongliang began conducting household surveys. Based on what he learned from the household surveys, Shen Dongliang and the village Party branch and village committee actively sought funding and project support, built 5 drinking water ponds and 3000 m of pedestrian walkways, assisted in renovating two Category D dilapidated houses, and also cooperated with the power company to upgrade the village power grid. With the support of the State Council Three Gorges Project Construction Committee Executive Office and the immigration bureaus of Chongqing and Wanzhou District, Puya Village also secured a 2016 targeted assistance project with an investment of 11.5 million yuan. He also advocated that the village committee organize prevention training on common diseases such as cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases and diabetes, so as to prevent poverty caused by illness and returning to poverty due to illness as much as possible.
As Puya Village solved, step by step, the difficulties of drinking water, travel, electricity use, and agricultural product transport, people's hearts became calmer and their drive for development stronger. Shen Dongliang's vision also looked further ahead. The beautifully scenic Puya Village is only 18 km from the Wanzhou urban area. Shen Dongliang and the village Party branch and village committee clearly defined the development approach of "establishing the village through tourism, strengthening the village through industry, and brightening the village through culture." Around the local specialty ancient red tangerines, they built sightseeing roads and strove to construct a three-dimensional development model of "one long corridor along the river, one road through the village, and one sightseeing path on the mountain." The village had no publicity funds, so with the support of the town Party committee and government, Shen Dongliang invited China Central Television, Hubei Film Studio, and Three Gorges Publishing and Media Company to the village to film programs. He also taught himself video editing, wrote the narration himself, and invited a host from China National Radio to do the voice-over for a promotional film. "Now two enterprises have already come to our village to discuss investment. It seems that although Puya Village's promotional film was made with 'rustic methods,' the effect is pretty good," Shen Dongliang said with a smile.
At his first village affairs meeting after taking office, Shen Dongliang made a "three-no commitment": he would not reimburse any personal expenses in the village, would not participate in any distribution of material benefits involving himself, and would not shirk any responsibility he should bear. He also made public the reporting telephone numbers of the former Supervisory Bureau of the State Council Three Gorges Project Construction Committee Executive Office and the town discipline inspection commission, as well as all his own contact information. Taking the lead himself, he opened a village affairs and Party affairs information disclosure board, publicly posting all the team members' telephone numbers, work commitments, the village's main work, and the land acquisition compensation funds, the list of people receiving minimum living allowance, the temporary assistance list, and so on that villagers cared about, effectively safeguarding the masses' right to know and right to participate.
Through the joint efforts of Shen Dongliang and the village Party branch and village committee, Puya Village successfully achieved whole-village poverty alleviation in 2015 and also scored an excellent 97 points in the district-level acceptance assessment. In Dazhou Town's comprehensive assessment that year, Puya Village also went from being a formerly lagging Party branch to winning second prize in the comprehensive assessment and first prize in the poverty alleviation assessment. Talking about this young "first secretary," Tang Hexiang said: "When he first arrived, I was not convinced by anything he said; now I am convinced by everything he says." (Reporter Zhang Guosheng, Correspondent Liu Daochun)