Luo Shaoquan: Bamboo baskets weave a road to prosperity in Shibantan Town, Chengdu

    In Shibantan Town, Xindu District, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, there is a bamboo weaving team known far and wide. Because the Chengdu-Chongqing Railway passes through Shibantan Town, the convenient transportation allows the vegetables abundantly produced locally to be sold continuously all over the country. Before the vegetables are loaded onto trucks, they must be packed into "bundles," and this kind of "bundle" is the "bamboo basket" woven from yellow bamboo by local farmers.   

In the early 1980s, Luo Shaoquan, who lives in Group 11 of Majia Village, Shibantan Town, spotted the huge market for "bamboo baskets" and, together with several villagers, pooled their efforts to set up a bamboo weaving team. From October each year to the end of February the following year, this 25-member bamboo weaving team works busily and in good order under the "shed" near Luo Shaoquan's home, and in just these short 4 months, this bamboo weaving team can weave nearly 40,000 bamboo baskets.   

In Luo Shaoquan's bamboo weaving team, this author learned that most of the people are elderly farmers, not only from this village but also farmers from neighboring villages and towns working here. For more than 20 years, bamboo weaving has not only given local elderly villagers a chance to work and earn money, but also helped Luo Shaoquan build a small enterprise of his own.