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E-mail China Daily, November 5, 2012
The decade since the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2002 has been an extraordinary period of growth. The world is undergoing extensive and profound changes, and the country is also going through a wide-ranging and deep transformation.
China's economic strength has increased substantially, and major breakthroughs have been made in reform and opening-up. Both urban and rural incomes have risen considerably. Living standards are significantly higher, and China has increased its involvement and cooperation with other countries in a number of fields. It has also started to play a major role in international affairs.
However, while those achievements have brought opportunities, they have also prompted unprecedented challenges, including in environmental protection and social welfare.
We have brought together three personal stories, together with statistics from various fields, including macroeconomics, the development of science, and household consumption, to demonstrate the level of progress during the past 10 years.
Chronicling the changes
Living in a poverty-stricken village in Xiji county in the Ningxia Hui autonomous region, Yuan Zhixue, a 36-year-old farmer who dropped out of high school, wrote a novel describing the huge changes that have taken place in his life since 2002.
"We live in a less-developed area, but I have seen good things happening in our lives almost every day during the past decade," he said. "I am so thankful for all the changes, that I have lot of good things to say about our country."
Born in a mountainous area in the south of the region, whose extreme environment saw it listed as one of the world's most uninhabitable zones by the United Nations in the 1970s, Yuan said his most powerful childhood memories are mainly of poverty and hunger.
After years of eating potatoes, the only crop able to thrive in the dry, sandy fields, the most exciting moments came at Chinese New Year's Eve, when Yuan, his brother and three sisters were given their much anticipated once-a-year snacks: Sunflower seeds, peanuts, and even candies if it was a good year.
Planting potatoes brought the family of seven an annual income of no more than 2,000 yuan ($320), so Yuan's father couldn't afford to buy much more than a few small treats, he said.
Even the snacks were limited. Yuan's father measured out the sunflower seeds with teacups and the children would each receive a cupful each.
After high school, Yuan worked at a local starch factory and later ran his own business, a luggage store.
"There was only one grocery store in our county," he said. "There were no opportunities. Farming was the only choice."
By 2012, Xiji county's economic aggregate had risen to 3 billion yuan, from 4.6 million in 1942, and the number of people officially designated as living in poverty fell to 180,000 from 250,000. Fiscal revenue soared to 84.6 million yuan from 400,000 over the same period.
Yuan said he can now make more than 20,000 yuan per annum. "Of course, compared with people in big cities, we are not rich. But the change is obvious," he said. "My two sons won't have the same childhood I had."
In 2006, the literature-loving Yuan decided to write a novel based on his life story. "I didn't think about giving my novel to anyone or getting it published. I just took a piece of paper and started to write the first chapter," he said.
"I believe a person's fate is connected with the nation's fate, even a person living in a remote village," he said. He and his family cried when watching the news of the devastating earthquake that hit Sichuan province in 2008.
"When the nation is getting better, so is your life, and vice-versa," he said. "I want to tell people that with my book. I am not saying my life is perfect, but neither is the country," he said. In his novel, Passionate Years, published in 2012 with the help from the local literary association, Yuan detailed his bitter memories of poverty and the loss of family members. But he said he's grateful to see the country improving, and the book conveys his hopes that the trend will continue.
Writing is not easy for a farmer, he said. The novel took him years to conceive, six months to write, and another six to type, because of his lack of knowledge about computers and word processing.
In addition to his novel, Yuan has published dozens of short stories in local literary magazines. He said Mo Yan's Nobel Prize for Literature has encouraged him to keep writing.
"There is an old saying in my hometown, 'People won't listen to a poor man's words'," he said. "In the old times, nobody would bother to read a novel written by a farmer, but the rising standard of living makes me confident about my writing."
New home, fresh start
The past decade has seen many changes in Chen Huaiyu's life. Some were anticipated by the 61-year-old: His two daughters got married, and last year he retired from his job as a buyer for a local metal-processing factory.
There was also another major change, one he had longed for "almost my entire life", but Chen still felt "quite surprised" when it finally came in 2009. He moved out of his shabby, congested and inconvenient bungalow in the old city of Datong to a new apartment just 2 km from his old home.
Chen had mixed feeling towards the first two events. He was happy to see his daughters tie the knot, but a little saddened to see them "leave the family". He finds his post-retirement life relaxed, yet unfulfilled.
He had lived in the bungalow for 58 years off and on, since his birth in 1951. At first, there was only his parents and him, but then the number of inhabitants rose to seven as four younger siblings were born.
However, the 23-sq-m room remained unchanged. It was small, but multifunctional. It served as two bedrooms, with a curtain hanging in the middle of the room to divide the space when the family slept; it was also the living room, the dining room and a study area. A single room acting as the reception area for guests, the main living space for the family and the children did their homework there too.
For decades, it was also the kitchen until the family built a 2-sq-m cooking area next door.
The only thing the room didn't have was a toilet. The family had to use the public bathroom 50 meters from the house and would "wait for as long as 15 minutes during the peak hour in the morning".
"I shared a bed with my two younger brothers and two younger sisters until I was 18, when I started working in a diesel-engine factory and lived in the (company) dorm," Chen recalled. "It was a kind of a relief for the family at the time because the house was really too crowded."
Nine years later, Chen moved back to the bungalow when he married Li Xiulan. They built an annex in the yard as a wedding room. "The only furniture was a steel bed made by my husband, a table, two chairs, and a wardrobe. It was already too packed," said Li. Their first daughter was born in 1980, followed by the second girl just two years later.
Chen's family was allocated a separate bungalow in the same neighborhood by the work unit, which transferred the "big room" to the couple and their two daughters.
In 2008, a large-scale housing project was launched and Chen left the old family home, paying just 20,000 yuan ($3,200) for a new 49-sq-m apartment.
"The market price for the apartment would be about 200,000 yuan, which I can't afford at all," he said. Now cooking and bathing are much easier and Chen even bought a large fish tank, which he placed in the living room. A large photo of the old couple dressed in the clothes they wore at their wedding, taken last year, hangs on the living room wall. "When we were young, we didn't have a nice room or a wedding photo. Now we have both. I'm glad it's not too late," said Li.
Flooring business booms
In the last decade, Xiao Daqi's business in Hefei, the capital of Anhui province, has expanded enormously. The company started in 2002 with four employees and now has more than 400 staff members. His factory manufactures 3 million square meters of wooden flooring annually, almost 100 times more than when it started.
The 58-year-old entrepreneur attributed his success to 30 years' experience and the rising demand for his products, spurred by the expanding real estate market and support from the local government.
Xiao dropped out of school at the age of 12 and began work at a local hospital to help feed his seven brothers and sisters. In 1980, aged 26, he borrowed 1,000 ($160) yuan from relatives and started his own business, operating a circular saw and cutting wood to earn more money.
In 1991, Xiao was recruited by the Huoshan flooring products factory, which registered the country's first flooring industry trademark, "Three Stars". In 2001, the State-owned factory was sold to a company from neighboring Jiangsu province, but Xiao's confidence in the future of the industry led him to decline a job offered by the local government and become self-employed once again. In December of that year, Xiao drove his battered van to Hefei, with his wife and one quilt.
He quickly rented house in downtown Hefei and the premises served as his first store, selling items made in Zhejiang province, famous for its wooden products. He then registered Great Mainland Flooring Co, so named "because of my patriotism". At the outset, he faced stiff competition from local traders and had little capital to expand the business.
After careful deliberation, Xiao decided to take a loan from a local bank. It was not an easy task for a self-employed businessman, but the city government helped him to obtain the money.
As his store gained fame and the real estate market began its sharp rise, Xiao's business began to thrive. In 2005, he owned 18 stores and he now owns 200 nationwide.
"I have to say that my choice was right, because I always believed in the future of the industry," he said. "Therefore, irrespective of what I decided to do, my wife always stood by me."
As the profits accumulated, Xiao decided to build his own factory in Chaohu, a city near Hefei, which offered convenient transportation links, allied to favorable policies on land purchases and taxation.
"My company was lucky to gain support from the city government, because they kept a close eye on local enterprises," he said.
However, disaster hit in 2007. That summer, Xiao's workshops were flooded by a 1-meter-deep deluge and all the machinery, imported from Germany at a cost of 10 million yuan, was severely damaged. Xiao had no option but to invest another 4 million yuan to replace the electronic components in the machines. Fortunately, the gamble paid off.
Xiao's life has never lacked drama. In 2010, his eldest son was diagnosed with a malignant tumor at the age of just 37. He passed away earlier this year.
Xiao gave jobs to 1,000 people, 90 percent of whom had been laid-off or were migrant workers from his hometown. They can earn as much as 4,000 yuan a month, three times more than at home.
"Having been born into a farmer's family, I would like to do something for migrant workers from my hometown. I want to do as much as I can," he said.
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