“Mr. Chao!
Wǒ de xiōngdì
[My brother],” a voice booms as I head back to my farm. Sure
enough, it’s my spontaneous co-worker and brother, Xiaolong. He lays his plant cutter flat on the
ground, and then dashes up in front of me to greet me. “Haven’t seen you in a long time!” he cries.
“Xiaolong, no need to unleash the waterfalls. Well, how’s all the cultivation going?” I ask.
“Oh, it’s going fine. You know, I’m getting all the rice and barley crops, and all that. But I need
to tell you something. See those bulldozers over there?”
“Wha . . .” I begin. Within seconds, the ambient resonance of moving chains, rotating blades
and screeching wheels ricochet between the walls of my head. “What . . . is. . . this?” I exclaim,
feeling unpleasantly surprised.
“Da Ge [Big brother], they’re planning on building greenhouses over there. We have the only
farm left, and it’s deteriorating, bit by bit.”
“How are we going to cope with all this competition once this is over?” My mouth gapes at the
thought of this new era.
“I don’t know, Da Ge. I guess we’ll have to just persevere in this.” He continues with his
planting work and lights a cigarette for a smoke.
I peer nervously at the commotion. Bulldozers raze everything in their path. Hundreds of
workers commence laying down piping and preparing to lay the foundation for a cleared site. Not
a single tree is retained in the process.
My neighbors have collectively sold out to the Shanghai-listed agricultural conglomerate,
which has purchased various plots of land to combine into an agricultural factory of sorts. Instead
of farmland in the traditional sense, this enterprise will be based upon greenhouses.
To limit the impact on society, the township’s leaders call the enterprise the “Cooperative.”
Sheltering the crops from the elements, especially Huang Sha, these massive greenhouses (some
as large as a football pitch) will grow all types of crops, including staples such as corn, wheat,
kaoliang (sorghum) and millet as well as cash crops such as peanuts, tea, barley, apples and oilseed.
Whereas farmers used to tend the land using primitive farm equipment and relying on
stipends from the Government for reduced prices for pesticides, the very same farmers now work
for the Cooperative. Instead of wearing individual apparel, the workers don coveralls, all bearing
the logo of the listed company.
For years, the Cooperative approached us to sell our farmland to the enterprise. Many
of us resisted but most decided to concede to the pricey packages on offer: in exchange for
the farmland, each farmer was entitled to an apartment in a highrise and a bus pass to the
Cooperative’s greenhouses, as well as a nice deposit in the bank.
I declined the Cooperative’s offer and follow-on offers. It was never an issue of money, as I
only required to make enough to feed my family and send my son through middle school – as
Father had done for me previously. My son never intended to follow my livelihood. Instead, he
made a quick dash to southern Beijing, where he now works in an automobile factory.
As it stands, my two-hectare plot is now surrounded by white tented greenhouses. Never
understood why they call them greenhouses.
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