HOU LIQIANG Long-lasting taste of life by the water

Traveling to a typical reservoir in Jiangxi province or the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region provides only a small taste of what life is like for the people charged with monitoring and protecting them — yet that taste is a long-lasting one.

Whatever excitement I might have had about visiting these picturesque places quickly disappeared once the bus left the highway.

From the downtown area of Liujiang county, it took almost two hours to reach the reservoir I visited. Much of that is over steep mountains and bone-shaking dirt roads.

“For some officials, they think they are in the countryside as soon as they get off the highway. For us, we know this is only the beginning,” a county official I was traveling with said as we held on to our seats.

For people hired by authorities to watch over these remote reservoirs, this is a journey they make two, or maybe three times a day. It is hard to imagine the toll that must take on a vehicle’s suspension.

It’s little wonder the county’s so-called family model, which saw homes built beside reservoirs for families to live in and protect the reservoir together, has been a success in retaining workers.

However, conditions still leave a lot to be desired in some places.

The station at the Liujiang reservoir is new but poorly furnished. It has no air-conditioning, despite the scorching temperatures in summer, nor any recreational facilities. About 20 people were crammed into the station’s meeting room, a collection of employees and visiting officials and journalists, all sharing just two electric fans.

Sixteen people work here, and the office is staffed 24 hours a day. They have to travel those bumpy mountain roads every day — all for a salary of 1,500 yuan ($245) a month. The scenery is beautiful, but there is little to do for entertainment.

Although vital to prevent floods and other accidents, the lasting impression I had of what it’s like to monitor one of Guangxi’s 4,333 reservoirs can be summed up with one word: boring.

PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY Yin Shanyong, a 50-year-old caretaker of the Guantang reservoir in Liujiang county, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, cleans monitoring equipment at the reservoir on Sunday.