Guizhou Pingba's Women's Golden Cili Pear Industry Grows Ever Larger
In the base, a group of women are loosening the soil and sowing flower seeds.
A small house with a red roof and yellow walls, simply furnished rooms, authentic Tunpu home-style cooking, and three hospitable sisters. This is probably the impression many visitors have of the farmhouse restaurant run by the Women's Golden Cili Pear Professional Planting Cooperative in Gaozhai Village, Baiyun Town, Pingba District.
But nowadays, such a "modest" scene is nowhere to be seen. Instead, there are standalone farmhouse villas with their own courtyards, terraced parking lots, scenic fishing ponds, and industrial sightseeing walkways built along the mountain... Such upscale facilities make people marvel that the "Women's Golden Cili Pear" three sisters have made it big!
The Women's Golden Cili Pear base has undergone such a complete transformation thanks to the instructions given by Zhou Jiankun, Secretary of the Anshun Municipal Party Committee, on November 7, 2015, during a visit to the cooperative: the road leading to the cooperative must be rebuilt, the park must be landscaped, and the farmhouse restaurant must be upgraded and renovated.
The Pingba District Party Committee and District Government attached great importance to this. Following the instructions of Municipal Party Committee Secretary Zhou Jiankun, they planned to invest more than 10 million yuan and actively sought projects from the Municipal Transportation Bureau to upgrade and renovate the cooperative, including the reconstruction and expansion of the 6.3-kilometer road leading to the cooperative.
Li Long, Secretary of the Baiyun Town Party Committee, told reporters: "Such a large investment in the upgrade and renovation of the Women's Golden Cili Pear Planting Cooperative is a huge opportunity for both the three sisters and Baiyun Town. To ensure the project is implemented, Pingba District and Baiyun Town have each set up working leadership groups - at the district level, the Deputy Secretary of the District Party Committee serves as group leader, and at the town level, the Town Party Committee Secretary and Town Mayor serve as co-leaders."
On the sixth day of the first lunar month this year, amid the joyful and peaceful New Year atmosphere, the upgrade and renovation construction project of the Gaozhai Village Women's Golden Cili Pear Base held its groundbreaking ceremony, with construction officially starting on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. March 22 was the fourteenth day of the second lunar month, exactly one month since the project started construction. At the project site, reporters saw excavators roaring and workers shuttling back and forth on the site. In the base, a group of middle-aged and elderly women were loosening the soil and sowing cosmos flower seeds... Construction and planting proceeded simultaneously, creating a bustling scene.
"The cili pear flowers will bloom in May, which is the golden period for tourists to visit. Through the efforts of the past two years, the cooperative has gained a certain level of recognition. We must ensure that before the May Day holiday arrives, the standalone villas, fishing ponds, sightseeing walkways, scenic pavilions and other projects are completed and presented to tourists with a brand-new look." Li Long told reporters that to landscape the base, camphor trees will be planted along both sides of the 1.2-kilometer industrial sightseeing walkway, and seeds of cosmos, lavender and other year-round colorful flower varieties will be sown across the more than 1,000-mu golden cili pear base, highlighting the layered landscape effect formed by the golden cili pear flowers and these colorful flower varieties at different heights.
Regarding the earth-shaking changes at the base, the three sisters Zhao Qiju, Shi Mingying and Shi Linfen, the owners of the base, feel as if they are in a dream. When they first started their business, they set development goals for the base: to develop ecological sightseeing agriculture, focusing on planting golden cili pears, supplemented by vegetables, Chinese medicinal herbs, premium fruits, etc., and to build a "Six Ones" project. Let tourists come to the base in spring for outings and flower viewing; in summer for fishing and cooling off; in autumn for fruit picking and vegetable harvesting; in winter for pig slaughtering and chicken killing - making the base have attractions everywhere and activities in every season.
After years of entrepreneurial hardship, the three sisters felt it would be very difficult to achieve this goal. They never expected that government departments at all levels would now join forces to upgrade and renovate the base, greatly exceeding the development goals they had originally set. Thinking that a dream they once considered very distant is about to become reality, and recalling all the bitterness and hardships since starting their business, the three sisters hugged each other and wept tears of joy.
"Sister reporter, don't laugh at us, but when we first started our business, to save money on hiring help, we would go to the base at 5 o'clock every day to harvest rapeseed. By the time we finished one field, it still wasn't light out. We pushed wheelbarrows ourselves to cut through mountains and build roads. To pay the workers' wages, the three of us sold all the gold jewelry we had bought for our weddings for more than 30,000 yuan. When hungry, we'd bring some rice and cook congee on the hillside. When exhausted from work, we'd lie down on the hillside for a nap. One time, I almost got bitten by a snake..." Before she could finish, Shi Linfen, the youngest of the three sisters, couldn't help but choke up.
"The three of us, with no blood relation or kinship, joined forces to start a business, and conflicts and disagreements were inevitable. To stay united and harmonious, we set a rule for each other: quarrels and sulking cannot last more than one hour, otherwise whoever exceeds 1 hour must pay a 50-yuan fine." The eldest sister, Zhao Qiju, also choking up, told reporters.
Seeing her two sisters in tears, the second sister, Shi Mingying, couldn't help but cry as well. "Before we started our business, our three families were doing reasonably well in the village, but we just wanted to realize our value as women and prove that women don't just revolve around the kitchen stove. But people who fail at developing planting businesses are everywhere, and not a single person in the village believed the three of us women could make it this far."
Every time they introduce their situation to outsiders, it is an opportunity to tell their story. The scene of tears flowing before words come out has often become an awkward moment for the three sisters.
The three sisters' hardworking, strong, persistent and united entrepreneurial spirit has moved Party committees, governments and departments at all levels more than once. Since starting their business at the end of 2011, they have successively obtained small loans for women from women's federation departments, "3 batches of 150,000" micro and small enterprise loans from industry and commerce departments, and project support from finance, animal husbandry, transportation, agriculture, poverty alleviation and other departments. Today, the base has grown to a scale of 1,500 mu, including 1,200 mu of golden cili pear planting and 300 mu of premium fruit planting, with Hongburuan peaches, Fengtang plums, agate red cherries, Jinqiu pears, passion fruit and others planted respectively, allowing tourists to enjoy flowers in all four seasons and taste fruits in all four seasons.
The three sisters are always grateful for the care and support of Party committees, governments and departments at all levels, and never forget to give back to society. The base has effectively driven women in the village to start businesses and find employment, allowing many middle-aged and elderly women who cannot go out to work, have no way to get rich at home, and face relatively difficult economic circumstances to work at the base - earning money while also being able to care for their grandchildren. Zhu Shixiu, a 58-year-old empty-nest elderly woman, works at the cooperative and earns about 1,800 yuan per month. In her first year of working at the base, she used her earnings to buy a TV and a refrigerator for her home. She told reporters: "These aunties at the cooperative don't mind that I'm old and asked me to come help them with the work. We chat and laugh together - it's lively, I earn money and I'm happy, and I'm not adding to my children's burden. Our family is more united and harmonious than before."
Zhu Shixiu's words are true. The base year-round employs more than 50 middle-aged and elderly women from Gaozhai Village, paying nearly 200,000 yuan in wages each year. During festivals and holidays, the three sisters also visit women in difficulty in the village and allocate funds to support the village in holding Spring Festival cultural activities.
Currently, the base's upgrade and renovation project is advancing rapidly and will open to visitors during this year's May Day holiday. By then, residents of Guiyang, Pingba, Anshun and surrounding cities will have another great destination for flower viewing, fruit tasting and leisure outings.