The Memory of Mount Chong

The reason why I say so is that I have experienced a life and death in Chongshan Village, and I have also experienced one of the most meaningful things in the country - poverty alleviation.

In the two years from 2012 to 2014, I went to Chong Shan village to do poverty alleviation work. I don't remember which day I went to Chong Shan. But I still remember clearly that it was the branch secretary of the village at that time, Meng Zhenjun, who drove to Jinchengjiang to pick me up. I missed the reporting time of the first secretary in the township because of a business trip, Chongshan village party branch secretary Meng Zhenjun asked the then secretary of the township party committee comrade Liang Zhigao, other villages have the first secretary, our first secretary? The township party secretary said: your first secretary was away on business and could not come to report. However, Secretary Meng Zhenjun had a heart, he quietly took down my phone number and drove to Jinchengjiang on the weekend of that week. When he came to Jinchengjiang, he just told me, otherwise I would not have let him pick me up. "I've already arrived in Jinchengjiang," said Meng Zhenjun's voice on the other side of the phone. I said in Wanjia Yi Yuan, you can find it by driving the navigation. Not long after, Meng Zhenjun to my home, that is my first time to see Meng Zhenjun, a middle-aged man, not tall, slightly dark face, thick eyebrows in the light, not long and short hair, slightly obese body, talking very brown, the voice is also particularly loud, I think in the village to do the secretary, have to have such a stand, otherwise, the villagers probably will not listen. I remember that at that time, there seems to be a young boy and he came together, the young man called Meng Chenggeng, speak a little less neatly, like the reason for fear of life, but later he spoke more fluent, perhaps because with Meng Zhenjun for a long time, was influenced by a lot of the reason.

I chatted with them while packing, and when everything was ready, we went to the village of Chong Shan. No words along the way, I tried my best to think, Chong Shan village should be a what, and my old village like? No, it should not be like that, it is said that our Hechi is mountainous, karst landscape, more rocky mountains, and my old home is also mountainous, but most of the mountains, despite the high altitude, but planting crops, as good as the harvest, that should be the same as the village where I used to live as a new rural instructor! I silently tried to find out, as if I was asking myself. But it turns out that the true nature of Chong Shan Village is still beyond my imagination.

Chongshan Village is really far away, not because the distance is far, but because the road is curved, driving up all make people feel very far, very far, very far. The car drove fast on the Jindu secondary highway, more than half an hour later, we arrived at the town of Ha-O, the car slowly drove into a junction on the right side of the secondary highway. It is said that it is the nearest country road into Chong Shan Village. However, it is said to be the closest, but the walk is very far, the car struggled to move slowly upward, almost the same as walking. The car in the vast mountain driving, sometimes uphill, sometimes downhill, sometimes left turn, sometimes right turn, rotating to make me drowsy, but I dare not sleep, because in this country road, there is always a side of the cliff, I worry that Meng Zhenjun also be turned faint. I stared at the road in front of me, but the more I stared, the farther away I felt. I looked back at Meng Chenggeng sitting in the back row, this guy has long entered the sleep, and from time to time also let out a snoring sound. "This kid, really big heart," I said without thinking. However, Secretary Meng Zhenjun seemed to hear the difference from my words. Hurry to comfort me, "no matter, Secretary Yuan, you also sleep a while! This road, I walk at least a hundred times a year." Although he said so, but I still dare not relax. It's okay, I'm not sleepy, you just pay attention to driving. Thus, after another hour and a half, I finally saw a village in front of me, I thought that was the village of Chongshan, happily shouted, "Finally, we are here", however, this time I was wrong again, only to hear Meng Zhenjun said, "That is the village of Longma, not far from our village. " Looking at the slowly, slowly far away from the village of Longma, the car once again to the uninhabited and unpopulated mountains, I began to doubt the words of Meng Zhenjun. However, Meng Zhenjun seems to be aware of my suspicions, "Yuan Secretary, or stop and rest." Meng Zhenjun said "a thief's heart" like. I wanted to get out of the car to take a breather, but saw that the sky has gradually darkened, so I dismissed the idea. Or go! The road is even worse in the dark, Meng Zhenjun did not insist, but continue to drive. I do not know how long it took, the car finally entered the Chong Shan boundary. At this time, the back of the Meng Chenggeng do not know when to wake up, suddenly happy shouted, "here, here, turn a corner to our village," he seemed to say to me, I can see that he also perceived my displeasure. Although his shouting interrupted my thoughts, I was happy to finally see hope after all the tossing and turning. We arrived at the village before dark.

This is a not too big and not too small cottage, there are about forty families, is the village headquarters of Chong Shan Village, of course, Meng Zhenjun and Meng Chenggeng family is also here. In the northwest corner of the village, there is a small two-story building, this is the village committee, only to see the roof of the building overhead, a bright five-star red flag bathed in sunshine in the air flying high, see this scene, although I feel very tired, but still quite happy, because that high red flag, let me feel that the village party organization construction than I thought much better. Yes, according to what I saw later, the construction of this village's party organization is indeed much better than that of some other villages, and the secretary of the village party branch, Meng Zhenjun, is very prestigious in the village and is particularly supported and embraced by the masses. In the evening, I stayed at Meng Zhenjun's house, Meng Zhenjun said to me: "You come to our village as the first secretary of the party organization, the township leaders pay special attention, they have to come to the village tomorrow to research, you also prepare it!" I said, "Okay, then you tell me about the situation in the village." So, we set up a dragon's gate, a chat is more than two hours. According to Meng Zhenjun's account, I had a general understanding of the situation in Chongshan. In a moment, I felt that the burden on my body was suddenly much heavier and the pressure had increased a lot. Chongshan village is a Yao village, the village more than 400 households more than 2,000 people, distributed in more than 30 natural villages, almost all the natural villages are in the surroundings of the mountains, so there are still more than 60% of the natural villages are not connected to the road, and access compared to the more urgent is the living water, in this circle of a couple of kilometers of the vast mountains, Chongshan village generations of people almost exhausted the nine oxen and two tigers have not been able to find water The water for living depends on God's blessing.

The next day, Meng Zhenjun and I got up early, first cleaned up the village, and then called the party members and village representatives one by one. Because that day was the day the township came to convey my appointment. About 11 o'clock, a black car arrived at the village headquarters, Meng Zhenjun and I greeted, from the car down three people, a deputy township chief, but also our village package leader, a township poverty alleviation assistant, and a driver (do not). Meng Zhenjun introduced to me one by one, I shook hands with them one by one, and said a few polite words without meaning to. We walked and chatted at the same time. Soon, we entered the conference room, only to see that the 40-square-foot conference room had been packed with people, and the podium, respectively, had several of our names, and we sat down in turn. In a moment, the whole room was quiet. Now meeting, the venue resounded with Meng Zhenjun's eloquent and powerful voice. Comrades, today we have the honor to welcome the first secretary of the party organization ...... selected by the city to our village for about thirty minutes, the meeting is over.

Chongshan village people are really interesting, they are frank and sincere, talk straight, some words are now looking back, feel some funny. At noon, Meng Zhenjun and I simply ate some lunch and started to visit the village. As Meng Zhenjun said, Chongshan Village is really big, half a day down, we only completed a visit to the task, not because our work efficiency is too low, but because we spent most of the time on the road. However, the first day of the visit was really interesting. During the visit, there were all kinds of strange requests that you could not think of, and there were some questions that were ridiculous, maybe because mountain people are used to talking straight. The first day we visited Long Xue Tun in Chong Shan Village, located in the northwest of Chong Shan, 7 km from the village (1.5 km from the township road), at that time, Long Xue Tun was not yet open to the road, we could only walk 1.5 km, walking halfway up the mountainside on the sheep's intestine path, I had to hold on to the grass and trees on the side of the road with every step, otherwise I would fall down if I was not careful, while the people in the village were not quite the same as me. The people in the village are not quite the same as me, they can almost all fly through the sheep's intestine path that makes people tremble with fear. Meng Zhenjun to take care of me, so walk a little slower. About an hour or so, we arrived at Long Xue Tun, which has about ten families, and almost all of the villagers' houses are built on the mountain, probably because there is really no flat land to be found there. Some are built on the hillside, some are built in the rocks, and some are under the trees, but most are clad in wooden planks, and many are a bit crooked to varying degrees, as if they would fall down if a gust of wind blew. We went down the path into the first on the left side of the path, which is a single family. Seeing us enter the house, a middle-aged man in his forties hurriedly stood up to greet us and sat down, looking up and down at me with unblinking eyes, looking at me a little uncomfortable. I hurriedly said, "Brother, I am the first secretary of the village, today to visit your home, is to understand the situation of your home and help needs." At the same time, Secretary Meng Zhenjun also introduced me to him very solemnly. Gradually, we got acquainted, and he was much bolder than when we first entered the door, and spoke more directly. He said to me, "Secretary Yuan, as you can see, our village is really poor, and in my case, I'm over forty years old and still a bachelor, it's really hard to live, you do poverty alleviation work, can you help a daughter-in-law to me." Hearing him finish, I almost burst out laughing. However, seeing his serious look, I finally held back. So I smiled and said, "You are very straightforward, but marriage is about freedom, and arranging a daughter-in-law for you seems illegal and unreasonable, but it is still possible to introduce you to someone, provided that you are rich." This one family's request certainly made me laugh, but it seemed that the funny and good-natured was still to come. When we visited the fourth family, the woman of this family said to me, "I heard that you brought a lot of money from the city, can you give us a share of the money, so that we can share with you." After hearing her say that, I felt a little angry but seemed to find it funny, I wanted to get angry on the spot, but saw that she said it with a voice, not like a joke, so I held back. The money I did not bring, but the state does give many preferential policies to poor villages, as long as you work hard, good days will surely come. We continue to visit ...... similar to help a daughter-in-law and share the money request there are also, but, perhaps because the previous visit has heard similar requests, so I do not find it funny. Of course, there is a household is also very characteristic, seems to be some brutal unreasonable, perhaps because he just drank a few glasses of wine, the words are particularly horizontal. He said either to pay, or to build him a house, or let us look good, I put up with his temperament and he explained a little half a day, he did not continue to fool around with us.

At around 7 pm, we finished our visit and returned to the village. When I think about the day's visit, the villagers' requests certainly made me feel funny and angry, and some of them were difficult for me to understand. But once I thought of the houses they lived in, shivering in the wind, I seemed to understand, understand why they would make such excessive demands. What a torturous time it would be for a man in his forties to remain unmarried, and how unbearable it would be for a family of seven to be crammed into a dilapidated house of 40 or 50 square feet! A family of six, on the man's meager income, that day will be difficult to what extent, I simply dare not think about it, I am afraid that I will continue to think about the night will lose sleep. However, I know that there is only one way to solve all the problems, and that is to get them out of poverty and wealth as soon as possible.

In the blink of an eye, more than a month had passed, and we had successfully completed our visit. By now, I had a good understanding of the situation in Chongshan. Summarized is a word - "poor", the deep-seated reasons, that is, the road is impassable, lack of water and no industry driven. For this reason, I hurried to organize research, the development of road construction, water closet construction and industrial development plan. In order to make the plan realistic, I also specifically found the relevant departments, consulting to understand the soil, climate, geography and other conditions of the village, and as a guide to scientific planning road construction, industrial development and water closet construction. When I will write a good development plan to the township returned to the village, a disaster quietly fell. I remember that it was a sunny day, but also the day of the full 42 days of the granddaughter of Chief Meng Zhenjun, the sun lazily wandered in the sky from east to west, sometimes shooting a blinding light, and sometimes hiding in the dark clouds to sleep, so that people have an inexplicable sense of depression and desolation. For some reason, the secretary of Meng Zhenjun, who traveled with me, also felt extremely uncomfortable on that day. According to him, that day he always felt something was not quite right, but could not say. This may be the precursor of the accident, and we are completely unaware of it. The car struggled to climb upward, on the car to a corner, I do not know what the reason, suddenly to the right side of the cliff out, just feel my body kept shaking up and down, head constantly bumped the car roof, Meng Zhenjun almost the same, but his mouth kept shouting, finished, finished, this time really finished. I was not so panicked, in addition to a little headache, it seems with no accident in general. In the car continues to slide and close to the wall, a bowl of small trees pinched the car to fall. I hurriedly gently pushed open the car door and climbed out, and at this time, Meng Zhenjun seems to have calmed down, the body turned left and right, as if looking for something extremely important, I hurriedly said: don't look, hurry down. He dragged his fat body to climb out of the car, I wanted to help him, but saw the car was still shaking from time to time, so I had to watch him struggling to climb out. When he climbed out of the car, I felt some astringency in my right eye, as if there was a sticky liquid constantly seeping in. I subconsciously touched it, and when I saw the blood in my hand, I realized that I had blood coming out of the corner of my eyebrow. We held the grass on the cliff to climb up with difficulty, about ten minutes, I climbed to the highway, and the highway does not know when there are dozens of people, with their help, Meng Zhenjun only very difficult to climb up. We just climbed up, we were a few villagers do not know a motorcycle sent to the health center, after examination, we are no serious injury, only a slight concussion. And the leaders of the township did not know how to get the news, have come to visit us. Seeing that we were safe and sound, they went about their business. After the accident, some of my close friends and I said to me, let me use this as an excuse to apply for transfer back to the unit to work, to be honest, I was really a little shaken, but when Meng Zhenjun said I had a life-and-death friendship with me, I felt shameful for my shake, so I dismissed the idea of going back to work in the city. I think after all, people a rural secretary have such awareness, look at death so easily, said so spontaneous. Not to mention me, a cadre educated and trained by the party and state for many years? And since that incident I and Meng Zhenjun's relationship is more iron.

Perhaps because of that accident, perhaps because the township leaders saw my true determination to help the poor. At that time, our village development plan reported to the township did not take long to get approval, agreed to our village construction of three village-level roads, while giving the village 20 dilapidated house renovation indicators, these compared with last year more than double the whole. Meanwhile, the construction of five centralized water closets in Longping, Longtight, Longyan, Shanxiang and Maocho was also solved in my repeated reports and communications. What is even more delightful is that in that year, our village also got the support of the central lottery provident fund project, the development fund is a whole 1.5 million yuan, which is a big and happy event for Chongshan village that has never been in the past for quite some time. With the support of funds, the development of Chong Shan village is like a fish in water. The next thing is to do things. In order to grasp the development planning, we establish the responsibility system according to the principle of area management, the village "two committees" is responsible for the development of the whole village, each area cadres are mainly responsible for the construction of projects in this area. After that, various projects were started one after another according to the scheduled plan. But still encountered a lot of problems, especially road construction problems are more, on the one hand, construction funds are not enough, on the other hand, boulder mountain road construction is very difficult, almost the construction of a section of the excavation in the middle of the mountains. Therefore, the mobilization of the masses to contribute undoubtedly became the most difficult bones of road construction at that time, in order to make the masses willingly contribute, I and the village "two committees" of cadres almost every day from morning to night, busy mobilizing the masses, sometimes we will also take the initiative to put into the road construction line, together with the masses to contribute. Village "two committees" cadres take turns to the road construction site to lead the masses to work gradually become an unwritten system. The cadres take the lead, the enthusiasm of the masses to participate immediately increased, morale also flourished, the road construction problems were finally overcome. In that year, all our projects were completed on time and on schedule, and the completion rate ranked first in the whole township. I think we were able to achieve that kind of success because of the joint efforts of all the villagers, and I am grateful to them for being able to work together to overcome the problems at the critical moment.

Perhaps because our task was completed in time, the next year, the township further increased its support for our village, and gave us the task of building a village road, so that the road construction covered all the tuns in the village, and the target of renovating dangerous houses doubled again, and the task of eliminating thatched bark houses was basically achieved. As for the industry, it is more inclined to give training in planting techniques. With the rapid development of the industry and the increase in the number of migrant workers, the villagers' life is getting better day by day, of course, this is an afterthought.

Poverty alleviation is preceded by intellectual support. When the construction of various projects was on the right track, I began to turn my attention to education and surplus labor export. Although Chong Shan Village is a vast area, it is mostly rocky mountains, and the contradiction of more people and less land is very prominent. Grasping the labor export and realizing the employment of the remaining labor force is another important way to get rid of poverty and get rich. However, the "two committees" of the village are well aware that the majority of young people in Chongshan Village have a low level of education, so it is very difficult to realize the transfer of employment. In order to grasp this work, the village "two committees" decided to go in two steps. First, I and Meng Zhenjun fully use their own resource advantages, and actively contact employers to arrange for mass employment. The second is to take the initiative to contact the relevant departments to grasp vocational skills training, so that villagers master one or two skills to facilitate employment. Some things, said really coincidentally, dry up naturally will be smooth. I learned to drive when the coach is the city vocational college teachers, I told him the idea by phone, perhaps because he himself is from the countryside, very sympathetic to the rural areas, he said with me willing to help. But what was more coincidental was that the city vocational college was also actively responding to the call of the municipal government to organize skills training in the countryside. In this way, a two-week labor skill training was held in Chong Shan Village, and a total of more than 200 young and strong laborers in the village participated in the training, and the content of the training was quite extensive, such as welding, motor repair, nursing, nursing, electronics and so on. After the training, some young people have come out of the mountains and found suitable jobs in some large and medium-sized cities. However, I was keenly aware that this was not enough from the actual population of more than 2,000 people in the village, and that more labor could be exported from the whole village. In order to promote this work, I suggested organizing a forum for people returning home during the Spring Festival to share their experience of working outside the village and to encourage them to work outside the village. At the end of 2012, a seminar for migrant workers was held in the conference room of Chong Shan village. At the seminar, more than 40 young people shared their experience of working outside, which surprised many people, especially when they heard the comparison of income before and after working outside, which made many people have the desire and impulse to work outside. Seeing their astonished expressions, I was secretly delighted, as if I saw the hope of the villagers to get rid of poverty and get rich. As I expected, the number of people working in the village increased exponentially in 2013, I think it was because they were inspired. I said with emotion, "For mobilizing people to go out to work, it is more direct and effective to say a thousand words than to say it by example."

While focusing on outworking, I have never forgotten to focus on education. Whenever I have free time, I will go to the village elementary school to understand the students' learning and living situation. Of course, since our village is a deeply poor village, I am also very concerned about the poor college students in the village. In order to help them, I often contacted my classmates in the provincial capital and sent them some photos from time to time, so that they could understand more visually the living and learning conditions of students in mountainous areas. And my classmates were also extraordinarily attentive. During my two years of service, they organized many donation activities for their friends in the village, and donated school bags, extracurricular reading materials, winter clothes, quilts and other living and learning supplies to the students according to the number of students in the school, especially winter clothes and quilts, which touched the students and parents. Some particularly difficult students also received a lot of cash grants. It is especially worth mentioning that one of my classmates in the postgraduate class also got two financial aid targets for poor college students in the township through his own connections. I also used the opportunity of renovating my own house to mobilize those building material dealers to make donations for the college students who will be enrolled in the township. Roughly estimated, in my two years of service, the community donated a total of RMB 80,000 yuan for the village elementary school and the poor college students in the township. Although at the time of doing these things, I also felt difficult, and even complained about myself. But whenever I saw those poor children running back to their dormitories and classrooms with smiles on their faces as they received the clothes from the good people, and when I saw those poor college students happily receiving the scholarships provided by the building materials suppliers and saying thank you, I felt especially at ease and happy and accomplished.

In Chong Shan Village, besides helping the poor, I also saw and participated in many interesting things. The Yao people love to sing and dance, and almost everyone is a good singer and dancer. As long as they sing, the clear and bright voice can be heard from a mile or two away; and as opposed to singing, the people of Chong Shan also dance well, especially their unique folk dance, as long as they have the accompaniment of drums, they can follow the rhythm of the drums and dance. People will almost always be surprised to see them, but also doubt that they have been professionally trained. When I was the first secretary, two famous singers had come out of Chongshan village, they were Meng Orijun and Meng Xiaoyan. Among them, Meng Orijun is more famous, and it is said that her singing voice has crossed the ocean, and she has been received by the national leaders for her personal contribution to the country. However, in comparison, Meng Xiaoyan's reputation is much smaller, but I prefer to listen to Meng Xiaoyan sing. Because Meng Xiaoyan is more grounded, she returns to her village every year at the right time, that is, on the day of "Zhu Zhu Festival", and brings one or two songs in pure Yao language to the villagers. The show is much bigger and the program is much richer. This festival is said to be as significant to the Yao people as the Chinese New Year. On the day of the festival, there will be celebrations in the village of Chongshan, where you can hear the sweet songs of Meng Xiaojun and Meng Xiaoyan, and also see the games that Yao people like, such as cockfighting, birdfighting, shooting Nu, playing gyro, etc. Of course, you can also see the Yao copper drums, but they are not very complete. If you are more lucky and invited by the Yao people of Jinxiu, you will enjoy a full range of drums. The Yao drums include the long drum dance, the bronze drum dance, and the Shigong dance, all of which have their own characteristics and are danced to the beat of a drum. Among them, the most famous is the long drum dance, which is divided into three categories: large, medium and long. It has gradually become a favorite show of the Yao compatriots. In addition to songs and dances, on the day of the "Zhu Zhu Festival", we can also taste the delicious food of the Yao people. We can also taste the unique food of the Yao people, such as corn paste, sweet wine, bacon, patties, water blood sausage, etc. Among them, water blood sausage is the most unique, although it tastes a bit messy, it is delicious and leaves a fragrant taste in the mouth.

In the blink of an eye, seven years have passed, and although I have been to Chongshan for the past seven years or so because of the invitation from the village, Chongshan has always been a place that haunts me, not only because I have fought in Chongshan, but also because the hospitality of the Yao compatriots in Chongshan and their national character of fighting against the odds have attracted me from time to time, and because the people of Chongshan have always treated me like a relative, after a full term of office. The parting words of the people of Chongshan to me: "Secretary Yuan, Chongshan will always be your home, welcome home anytime" echoed in my ears all the time. I think I will visit Chongshan again in the future if time permits. I think the standard of living of the villagers is not what it used to be, and the "Zhuzhu Festival", which is part of the Yao traditional culture, will also be carried forward in Chongshan. I hope that the next time I go to Chongshan, I will be able to see the same grand festival as the one held by my fellow Yao people in Jinxiu.