A day trip through rural life in Beijing's suburbs over the past 45 years

Number of days: 1 day
Time: April
Average cost: 100 yuan
With whom：a person
Tour kinds: Humanities
The author went to these places: Tiananmen Square, Beijing

It's been three months since the COVID-19 outbreak. The situation in Beijing improved in late April, with no new cases for several days. With nothing to do, I suddenly remembered the place where I worked in the countryside in 1945. It was a small village southeast of Beijing, 33 kilometers from Tiananmen Square. I worked there for two years after graduating from high school in 1975-76. At that time, male laborers in the village earned 10 work points a day, which amounted to 32 cents a day for a year. Women earned 8 work points a day, and male educated youth also earned 8 work points. This amounted to less than 10 yuan a month. At the price level at the time, 10 yuan was enough to eat for a month. Villagers also had to wear clothes, raise children, and have housing. They didn't know what to do if they were sick, and I don't remember anyone seeing a doctor. Villagers could only drink porridge at night and couldn't afford to eat dry food. This is a satellite photo of the village. I went back once in the winter of 1997. Now 23 years have passed, and I wonder how many of the folks back then are still here.

I left home early in the morning at 6:30 and took the No. 6 subway line. All the passengers were wearing masks.

Changed trains at Rongchang East Street Station on the Yizhuang Line at 8:12

Beijing subway car exterior

After leaving the city, the subway goes to the ground, on the viaduct

Inside the subway car

8:26 From Jinan Station, transfer to bus No. 58

The interior of the county-level bus, the vehicle is very new and very clean

This should be near Majuqiao, within the boundary of Daxing County.

I checked it out: second-hand house in Majuqiao, 2 bedrooms, 1 living room, 1 bathroom, 90.91 square meters, north-south, high floor/6th floor, fine decoration, built in 2003, RMB 2.85 million, unit price RMB 31,000/m2

Industrial parks are beginning to appear

It also provides employment opportunities for the surrounding villagers.

Mercedes Benz 4S store? There are trees on both sides. src="https://dimg04.c-ctrip.com/images/01016120002l45w5gFA1A_W_671_0_Q90.jpg?proc=autoorient" />

Returning farmland to forest

Dust prevention measures

Remaining at the Resident Camp. Web excerpt: "The 72nd Company Camp is a general term for villages named after the camp in the Fenghe River Basin in the southeastern part of Daxing District. In the early Ming Dynasty, the area housed the Aboriginal Education Bureau, which was affiliated with the Shanglinyuan Prison. Immigrants from present-day Shanxi and Shandong provinces settled within the bureau's jurisdiction, making a living by raising livestock and planting crops. They established villages along the banks of the Feng River, often using the name "ying". A total of 58 ying were built, which the villagers commonly referred to as the "Seventy-two Company Camps."

The clothes of the people getting off the bus made it impossible to tell whether they were in or out of the city.

This forest is purely for greening purposes and probably has no actual income.

Greenhouse

First, go to Zhangziying Town to take a look. It was called a commune back then.

The road is quite wide

9:00, took 2h30m. The storefront buildings on both sides of the road are similar to those at the provincial and county levels.

On April 15, 1975, I was taken from this courtyard to the village to join the queue in a bullock cart sent by the village.

The shops here should have a rental income of about 100,000 yuan a month

Dress like this

The town is 7 miles south of the village. Take a bus back

Get off at Changziying Middle School. This is where I taught three classes back then.

There's a man working in a roadside flower shed.

This is a public toilet next to the station. Let’s go in and take a look.

It’s no different from the toilets in the city. Fewer people use it, so it’s cleaner.

I took a photo here to record the changes in historical progress.

Think about it, 40 years ago, my country and India had the same GDP per capita. Comparing them today, Mr. Jin is right: the key to whether a country can improve its people's living standards is whether it can industrialize.

The village on both sides of the road is called Qinshuiying Village.

In 1975, the workers in this village earned more than ours, maybe 1 yuan a day, which was 2-3 times our income.

Now the village is full of bungalows, with no two- or three-story buildings.

It is a Chinese custom to have couplets at the door of every house. These are changed once a year.

The appearance of the town’s buses. Compare them to the buses in New Delhi, the capital of India.

This should be someone in the village's new car. It hasn't been registered yet.

Is this couplet handwritten? So cultured.

When I have money, I like SUVs. When I travel to Germany, two-thirds of the cars there are hatchbacks, which are fuel-efficient.

The houses were all of similar quality. You won't find slums or shantytowns around our big cities.

Back then, the houses were made of adobe walls with a layer of red bricks. Today, the exterior walls are probably all brick.

The village entrance has been closed and outsiders are not allowed to enter.

The greenery in the village.

I was here when Premier Zhou passed away on January 8, 1976

Changziying School serves elementary and middle schools, with a total of 1,500 students. High school students seem to go to Huangcun, a central town in Daxing District. The security guard said teachers earn as much as ¥5,000 per month. The school was closed, and I, a former substitute teacher, was not allowed to visit.

Take the bus again and get off at the south side of Zhunao Village. Surrounding factories or office buildings

9:50 I arrived at the south gate of Zhunao Village. The plaque read: Zhunao Village. Back then, the villagers liked the "nao" in "managate," meaning red agate.

There was a male villager sitting under the pergola. I walked over and recognized him as one of the only two high school graduates in the village that year. His surname was Yuan, but I can't remember his name. The other one was a girl named Wei. I haven't seen him since I left the village. After prompting him, he actually called out my name. He's in good health, with a straight back. This is the benefit of not smoking. Back then, few men in the village didn't smoke.

This is the village residence, a two-story building.

This building of this color represents a home.

There are shops downstairs and people live upstairs.

This is a three-story house.

Most of the houses in the village were built between 2015 and 2017. They cost ¥400,000-500,000, are two- to three-story, and have a floor area of 300-450 square meters. They come with plumbing, flush toilets, piped natural gas, and internet access.

This is the new home of Jia Ge, the former production team leader. It's located right where we, the educated youth, once lived.

The village's residential plots are 14m x 20m = 280m². Jia Ge's building is a single-story building, 14m x 10m = 140m² of built area = usable area. Spacious and bright. 80cm x 80cm floor tiles. Baseboards.

The woman in the red coat is Captain Jia's wife. People recall that among the village's more than 100 people back then, 11 were still single. During my two years in the village, no one had a new wife. Later, even the singles found wives.

This is Brother Xiang, the work point keeper back then. He's nearly 70 now, but in good health, and he doesn't smoke.

We had originally planned to eat at a village restaurant for lunch, but due to the pandemic, they were closed. So, we had five cold dishes, five hot dishes, pies, dumplings, and white wine at the captain's house.

I met five villagers in total. I visited each household to see how their living conditions were.

The second place we came to was Brother Xiang’s house. His house was a three-story building with several rental rooms. There was no shop.

Zhunao Village has a registered population of 150, with a monthly income of 700,000 yuan and an average income of 4,600 yuan per person. The majority of the residents are renting out apartments (700 yuan/month) and shops (60,000 yuan/month for restaurants).

The corridor of the auxiliary rooms on the first floor outside the building

Brother Xiang's living room is on the third floor and isn't as big as the captain's. Brother Sheng's wife passed away early, and now his son and his family live with him. His daughter-in-law serves us tea and water, and the family lives a happy life.

Leaving Brother Xiang's house, we arrived at the third house: Brother Sheng's house. It was Brother Sheng's wife who served us water.

Sheng Ge’s kitchen and dining room

Sheng Ge’s bathroom, with washing machine and flush toilet, everything you need

The fourth one is the exterior facade of Yuan Ge's house. The restaurant on the first floor is outsourced and the monthly rental income is 60,000 yuan.

The stairwell in the building

Go up to the third floor

The hall outside the third-floor living room is equivalent to the original patio

The door to the third-floor living room

There are toys for the grandchildren in the living room.

A photo of Brother Yuan and Sister Yuan with their grandchildren hangs on the wall.

The kitchen is also a modular kitchen cabinet

At 3:00 PM, the last house, the fifth one, is Xiao Fuzi's. He was born in 1962 or 1963. His family has the largest construction area, and the entire land is fully built. The red gate is his main entrance.