Xingjian Village Countryside Tour: City Dwellers Go to the Fields to Experience Farming Life

Photography/Li Jiaye

Although autumn has already arrived, the first week of this year's summer vacation still brings back fond memories for the "summer tour group" that led 29 children, and we also got to know a lovely group of farmers and staff in Xingjian Village. That day, the earth was as hot as a steaming, boiling furnace. The temperature this year was especially strange and unpredictable - either so cold it left people stunned, or so hot it drained all life out of them. Many of the children in the group said, "Other than an air-conditioned room, I don't want to go anywhere."

Of course, we couldn't just let them stay in an air-conditioned room doing nothing, especially since the summer vacation had only just begun.

Leading 29 children from first grade to first year of junior high, plus 9 adults - over 90% of the adults and children had never set foot on farmland before. Since they had joined me, they simply had to follow me to Xingjian Organic Village in Sanxing Township, Yilan, to learn about organic crops, go into the scallion fields to pull scallions, and visit the scallion shed to wash them. Predictably, this bunch of city-raised chickens, big and small, would surely not be able to stand working in the fields under the blazing sun. One gentleman kept questioning before the trip, saying, "Can I please not go into the field?" I was uncompromising and gave no quarter, replying half-jokingly and half-threateningly, "When you get to the countryside, if you don't go into the field, you don't get to eat!" I was determined, like a scale weight dropped on a scale, to make this group of city bumpkins understand where the crops they eat actually come from.

Xingjian Village, located at the right chest of Sanxing Township in Yilan, is enclosed by three waterways - Xingjian Creek, Annong Creek, and Wanfu Irrigation Canal - in a ㄇ shape, and is tucked away on Yiyin Road, forming a natural isolation belt. These naturally formed conditions are most suitable for developing organic farming practices. But in the scorching summer, the Lanyang Plain covered in green fields lacks large shade trees, and on top of that there had been no rain for an entire week. The ground temperature was seething. The children, wearing hats, long sleeves, long pants, and rain boots, almost all squirmed and sweated with pained expressions as they followed in groups, one by one, in the footsteps of the farmers practicing natural farming in the village onto the field ridges. The older children even held umbrellas, clearly marking them as "city folk."

But once they entered the field, the sturdy crops among the gourd trellises immediately attracted the children, temporarily making them forget the summer heat. Especially when they saw white eggplants and oversized okra, they were all transfixed, marveling in amazement! The farmers may not be good with words, but when they hold up the vegetables they grew themselves, that is more convincing than anything. This piece of land has its own story. Teacher Chen Qijun, who already teaches professional and amateur farmers about organic cultivation at the community college, led a group of farmers with "foolish persistence" to transform a patch of hard, rock-solid land that traditional farmers had mocked as barren ground. Now, the farmers here grow eggplants, cucumbers, green peppers, tomatoes, winter melons, okra, and more. The quantity is not large, but it is more than enough for self-sufficiency.

Seeing that the children liked them, the farmer generously picked crops along the way and gave them to the children. Before long, the children were all carrying all kinds of spoils in their hands. Right after that, we went to the natural scallion field in Xingjian Village to pull scallions, stepping into the scallion field of Shen Gaonan, nicknamed the "sad farmer." As he walked, he said, "Because the children were coming, I pulled weeds yesterday." There is a great deal of knowledge in this peaceful coexistence between the weeds and the scallions.

In fact, being able to grow scallions without relying on pesticides or chemical fertilizers, even in summer during the peak breeding season of the beet armyworm, which loves to eat the sticky fluid inside scallion greens, could almost be called a "special ability." But Gaonan generously revealed the trick: sprinkle probiotics, whose scent fascinates the armyworm, onto the grass to shift the egg-laying area of the moths. Even without applying insecticide, the scallions can be preserved. Someone nearby even solemnly warned these "city slickers": "In summer, never eat scallions raw, because the pesticides on them can be frighteningly high!" This scared quite a few scallion-loving ladies in our group out of their wits!

Pulling scallions also takes knowledge. Wrap one hand around the white part of the whole scallion, bring the other hand over, and use both hands with force so that you can pull up a whole scallion intact - perhaps making it more willing for the scallion. At first glance, these scallions pulled up by the children did not seem to look as good as those on the market. If you underestimated them because of that, you would be too short-sighted.

Gaonan led the group into a rather unremarkable scallion shed. He carefully explained that they first had to peel off the outer layer, then put them one by one into a water tank to wash clean. The children rolled up their pant legs. "Wow! The water is so cold!" Even the teenagers who had initially been listless began to work seriously. Before long, the scallions revealed their true appearance - clean white and slender, handsome and elegant. "Jade cannot become a vessel without being carved." It turns out that scallions do not show their beauty until they are washed.

In the corridor of the newly relocated Xinjian Village office, lunch prepared jointly by the Xingjian Village cooperative and local farmers was laid out - enough to feed 60 people! Simple, unadorned natural vegetable dishes with pure flavors - winter melon, cucumber, sponge gourd, braised tofu, and Sanxing scallion pancakes grown with natural farming methods. The considerate cooperative aunties worried that the children would not eat vegetables, so they specially stewed a pot of fragrant minced pork sauce. Perhaps because they were tired after working, these children who did not eat vegetables not only ate with relish, but even kept asking, "Can I have another scallion pancake?" Even the accompanying adults among us who "can't swallow a meal without meat" kept praising, "So delicious!"

We ate the table full of real food, enjoying the cool breeze blowing gently. With my belly full but my heart not quite satisfied, I thought to myself, "One day I'll gather another group and come work the fields again!" There is no helping it - in a past life, I must have had some connection with farmers. Watching the well-fed children chase each other and laugh in the fields, crouching down to observe small fish and insects, I thought, "Tonight you should smile even in your dreams."