Got up at 7 as always. I got up and grabbed some baozi before getting on the bus at 8:30. The bus took close to 2 hours. We ended up directly north of beijing. We left the bus at the town center, currently a make-shift market, but also doubling as a taichi and basketball court. The party offices were next-door. They had a new theater that we sat in while the party secretary met with us. Apparently the town has been getting a ton of money lately from the central government. The area is being preserved as a natural area. (the area around has many ming-dynasty tombs, although this town isn’t near any, it’s still in the protected area.) That means there are subsidies for families that set up small bed-and-breakfasts for tourists, and the government will support families moving away from farming lifestyle. (they said moving towards more commercial lifestyle so that the farms around can get replanted with trees.) The government will supply rice and food subsidies to the residents in exchange.
We walked the length of the town, and then met up with our host families. I guess of interest is that the main road was newly and well paved. Every family pretty much had guard dogs. There were new street lights all over the main street that were solar powered.
I’m staying with matt. Our host mother is nice. She has one highschool aged son (17) who is home for the weekend, a son in college, and a daughter that works at the beijing airport. She gave us a huge lunch with lots of good stuff (zaizi are a sort of miniature apple, also salted cucumber pieces, peppers and pork, pieces of chicken with onions, and a tofu dish.)
After lunch we went into our research groups. Me, matt, rebecca, and Prof. Zhang. We were going to ask questions regarding media differences and differences in worldly knowledge between the city and village. (this was my suggestion; way to take the initiative me.)
We asked a lady we found in the square, one of the village committee members, and the security guard at the village secretaries compound. Turned out there was internet in the village, but only the young people used it. People did typically have cellphones. And papers were common. It wasn’t that rural, only a couple hours out of beijing, and so most people were getting beijing newspapers and going into the city for the olympics and such.
The security guard was cool. he was 75, and left when he was young to be a salesman in a mall, but then came back once he got old. He had a piano, but it was broken. I offered to zhang laoshi to buy him a new one, and she said to talk to her once we got back to beijing, they’re about 100kuai / 15USD apparently.
We departed shortly later for dinner. Dinner, and really all the meals at the rural village, was great.
After dinner, I got a call from the teachers, the group was meeting in the theater to watch a movie. Went over there with the host brother. nobody knew how to operate the theater. It didn’t have a plugin for a computer, and nobody brought dvds. They didn’t have any dvd’s with english subtitles or dialog.
Eventually we went over to one of the houses to play mah zhong. I sat over on the side and did a bit of math on my computer while people were getting taught to play. There really wasn’t that much time, because the village pretty much is asleep by 9:30.
Went back, the host mother had waited up for us watching TV. Went to bed. The bed was a traditional kang. That means it was right behind the kitchen area. The area under the wok could be opened to the kang, which is just a large brick ledge with a sheet over it. That way it ends up staying warm all night, quite ingenious.