Barren Hills Turn Green: A Yan’an Miracle
More than 80 years ago, American journalist Edgar Snow recorded the scene of the Loess Plateau in Red Star Over China. Apart from the desolate landscape, the poverty of the loess at the time made a deep impression on him. In the book, he lamented that “North Shaanxi was one of the poorest parts of China I have ever seen.” Snow added that, “A peasant could own as much as 100 mu of land and yet be a poor man.” Located in Northern Shaanxi, Yan’an was once the center of the Chinese revolution. However, poor natural conditions here as well as the poverty of the people were heartbreaking. In the past, the main source of income for the villagers in Yan’an was farming and sheepherding. Due to the poor quality of the land and serious soil erosion, people often worked painstakingly the entire year and yet gained only a little. Not only that, but the city remained caught in the vicious cycle of “the more land they cultivated, the more barren the land was, and the poorer the people were.” “Every family cultivated dozens of acres of land, but they might still be hungry,” described 53-year-old villager Yan Zhixiong Nangou Village, Wuqi County, Yan’an City at the time. At the end of the last century, total land area suffering from […]
Uncategorized Sep 26, 2018