Change for the Better
Iwould say that what my hometown village is undergoing now would have been the stuff of fiction 15 years ago.
As my father drove me back to my village in Gaoling district, Xi’an, Northwestern China’s Shaanxi Province, I tried to recall what life was like there before I left.
Unrecognizable
As I remember, the road was muddy and I slipped on it many times on rainy days on my way to school. Now the road is smooth and covered with concrete. Street lamps stand on both sides, making the dark village night as bright as day.
A network of highways has sprung up around the village, making transportation more convenient, and I could barely recognize the place when my father drove me home from the highspeed railway station. It only takes half an hour from the village to the Xi’an North Railway station and the airport. A sight-seeing highway was also built along the Weihe River, giving people a better view of the junction between the Jinghe and the Weihe rivers.
The village itself is now totally different in appearance. Shabby cottages have been replaced by two-story buildings, and various cars are parked in front of the houses.
One neighbor who owns a Mercedes Benz and Range Rover said he made a fortune from his construction material business, and is now very content because he can give his family a better life. After talking with neighbors, I was told that their prosperous lives are the result of beneficial policies that compensate farmers generously for planting crops.
“Before, the only income for our family was just 6,000 yuan ($870) from crops. Now the number has increased greatly since the government covers most of the costs of growing crops, such as fertilizers and irrigation,” one neighbor said.
Living smart
On the second day of the Spring Festival holidays, when I expressed surprise to hear that the air conditioner was on after we had been out the whole day, my father smiled and told me that he had turned it on with an app on his phone on our way back. He said he and my mother are now living a “smart life” since many appliances can be controlled with a smart phone.
He told me with pride that the government gave him 3,000 yuan ($435) in compensation for using clean energy, which covers half of the air conditioner costs.
My father said he is planning an overseas trip with my mother and their friends this year. Many villagers, especially the older ones, have taken to spending their Spring Festival overseas in recent years. A group of neighbors decided to apply for passports and visas for a trip to Thailand after they saw photos of beautiful scenery posted on WeChat by other villagers who had visited the country.
On the street, one neighbor was sharing taffy candies she had brought from Vietnam with her friends while telling them funny stories that had happened on her trip.
“Because I’ve never been to a big city and never traveled or even seen a plane, I want to experience the life that I saw in the movies, now that I have the opportunity and money,” said a 65-year-old neighbor.
A local travel agency has seized on the opportunity and customized a series of overseas travel routes for clients from rural areas. “The tourism market in rural areas has a lot of potential, since family incomes here have seen a rise and the villagers are becoming more open-minded in their consumption habits,” said a manager of the travel agency surnamed Jin.
“They are more likely to try new things and seek entertainment, so overseas travel is fairly attractive to them,” Jin added.
The village is evolving into a more modernized one, while the villagers are also becoming more open to the new world.
This year, my 70-yearold grandpa got his own smart phone and WeChat account. “Now I can video call you when I miss you,” he said with a beaming smile.