Leng Juzhen: A Village Party Secretary Devoted to Poverty Alleviation

Secretary Leng, Devoted to Poverty Alleviation (Poverty Alleviation Notes)

Leng Juzhen, First Secretary of Xiaonanhe Village, Xilinzi Township, Raohe County, Heilongjiang

I was assigned to Xiaonanhe Village in Xilinzi Township, Raohe County, as First Secretary a year ago. Xiaonanhe Village is notorious for its poverty: the land is thin and only dry fields can be planted, the crop growing season is short and harvests are poor, and the villagers are narrow-minded, fond of drinking and playing cards. After arriving, I used local resources to develop the economy and worked hard to get the villagers to put down their wine bowls and prosper together.

A Female Official from the City Becomes a "Tough Woman"

I grew up in the city and was used to a comfortable and convenient urban life. After entering the village, everything here stunned me: every household had a wolfdog taller than a child in front of its door, and whenever I passed by, they would bark fiercely at me; there was no washroom indoors, so I had to go outside to an open-air toilet; the roads were muddy dirt paths everywhere, and after walking a round in white shoes, they would surely come back black... The villagers also noticed how unaccustomed I was. When I first arrived, they even muttered in front of me: "A female official, can she last in the countryside?" "She's from the city, can she understand our situation here?"

Since I came, I had to do a good job. I calmed myself and looked for all kinds of opportunities to get close to the villagers. When villagers went to work in the fields, I helped them, and I often chatted with them to find common ground. There was one villager who loved to oppose everything and often told others that I was incapable, saying I "came to mess up Xiaonanhe." I thought that to make a breakthrough, I had to crack the hard nut. I often went to his home to help him clean the stinking ditch and wipe the windowsills. Later, he came out to work with me and said sheepishly: "Secretary Leng, I was wrong. I shouldn't have said that about you. From now on, whatever you say, we'll all listen to you." Gradually, the villagers began to accept me.

?If the village has no livelihood, we must create one

Speaking of Xiaonanhe, besides poverty, there is another thing it is famous for: liquor. Many households in Xiaonanhe have two vats, one for water and one for liquor. The villagers drink at every meal. Other people drink from cups, but here the villagers drink from bowls. I asked them why they loved drinking. The villagers said: "There's nothing to do. If we don't drink, what else is there to do?"

I thought that changing the villagers' deep-rooted thinking had to rely on successful demonstrations. So I selected several Party member leaders and led them to visit villagers' homes one by one to do work, getting everyone to put down their wine bowls and prosper together. At first, very few responded. Some people advised me, "These people can't be helped; don't bother with them." But I firmly believed, "If we do this, the whole village must do it together!"

To change poverty, we first had to quit drinking. If there was no livelihood, we would create one. Before entering the village, I carefully sorted out Xiaonanhe's local conditions and customs and the causes of its poverty. I felt that Xiaonanhe's ecological resources were very unique: one mountain (Dadingzi Mountain from the song "Wusuli Boat Song"), one temple (Miaoyin Temple, the easternmost temple in China), two rivers (Xiao'an River and Bei'an River), and one river (12 kilometers from the Wusuli River and Sipai Hezhe), and the village still retained a number of log cabin old houses and large courtyards with obvious Guandong characteristics from the 1930s and 1940s.

I love photography. From a photographer's perspective, I saw business opportunities in local resources. So I used my photography circle resources and began to build a farmhouse photography tourism base with Dadingzi Mountain Scenic Area as the backdrop, Raohe's beautiful wetlands as the support, and Xiaonanhe's unique folk customs as the feature.

?If Xiaonanhe doesn't become rich, I won't leave even if you chase me away

At the south end of the village, I selected two older streets and several representative old log cabin houses as the prototype of the base. To guide the people to participate actively, at the beginning of the base's launch, I bought antique-style printed cloth, New Year pictures, window decorations, and nearly 500 red lanterns and gave them to the people along the street to create a distinctive farmhouse atmosphere.

In only a month and a half, we initially built a service chain integrating "food, lodging, travel, entertainment, and shopping," organized 103 households of villagers to establish a farmhouse tourism association, with Party members taking the lead in developing 16 "farmhouse" businesses, created 7 traditional craft family workshops such as Guandong folk custom houses, old tofu mills, and old liquor mills, and designed folk tourism activities such as the "Opening Plowing Festival" and "Yangge New Year Greetings."

At present, the whole village has received more than 5,000 visits from tourists within and outside the province, and revenue from farmhouse businesses and sales of local specialties has reached more than 200,000 yuan. We organized Party members and association backbones to use a many-help-one approach, working with supporting units to formulate assistance measures household by household, helping 42 poor villagers achieve poverty alleviation.

My term of service is two years. Many villagers and business owners asked me: "When the two years are up, you leave, and the projects aren't finished, what then?" I answered: "As long as Xiaonanhe needs me for one day, I will work here for one day. If Xiaonanhe doesn't become rich, I won't leave even if you chase me away!"

(Compiled by reporter Fang Yuan)