Posted on by africanroutes

Countryside in Fuzhou, Jiangxi Province

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So, as the economic prosperity begins to trickle down to the farmers, the first thing they may do is to build a better house in the village. However, they do not live in the houses because they have gone to the cities to find work that will pay better than framing. They are called migrant workers. So…unless they have grandparents or other family members to live in the homes they remain vacant all year, until the great migration of people occur during the annual Spring Festival (Chinese New Year). That’s when virtually everyone in China returns to their village to celebrate the new year (see my earlier posts).

Explore the Spirit

JLM

Posted on by africanroutes

The Countryside in Fuzhou, Jiangxi Province

I’ve been away from blogging for a few weeks now, traveling when I can, and keeping very busy with mid-terms and other University activities. Now we’re coming up on the end of the school year, and it has been a very rewarding experience.

I was invited to the hometown of one of my friends recently and got a chance to go to the countryside. While the West likes to extol the fact that China has achieved such rapid economic growth over the past 30 years, most of the 1.3 billion people still reside in the countryside. While the national GDP may reach extraordinary numbers, the INDIVIDUAL GDP is extremely low for most of the population. So I was grateful that I had the opportunity to go to where you might say the real Chinese population live.

China is still a developing country, and everyone do not live in Beijing, Shanghai or Hong Kong.

My friend’s family has a rice company in the city of Fuzhou. I got to see how rice is harvested, bagged and shipped to buyers, and how it is planted and grown. The days I was in Fuzhou it was overcast and lightly raining but it was great being out in the fresh air and walking through the mist.

Explore the Spirit

JLM