Notes from a Dusty Land

NINGXIA WATER MANAGEMENT SURVEY TRIP (4/10 – 4/26)

4/11/2008

Day 2 in the Ningxia Water management and governance field work. Our team of 14 people, plus LJ, the research team leader, plus me, flew from Beijing to Yinchuan, Ningxia yesterday. Flying in over Yinchuan 2 things stood out, first the vast nothingness of the landscape, flat, dry, brown dusty land in all direction, leaving one to wonder what (who?) can possibly survive in this place. We had lunch in town with the directors from Ningxia Water Resource Bureau. Same old rite of passage story, wine to drink, toast after toast after toast to be had with the different officials. The director was in his mid-50s thereabouts, the rest of his crew were younger, from a very young 27 to about the mid-thirties. Delicacies here seem to be wolfberries (goqi), from which they make wine, tea, liquor. Today we had pigeon, pretty disgusting with tiny little bones in every bite.

Following lunch on Thursday, we immediately drove from the capital city to a remote city just south of the Inner Mongolia border called Zhongwei (中卫城市). As we drove though the province, the land looked positively un-arable, like a dusty plain with peasants out on the field kicking up dust with hoes and shovels. It is really planting season for the main crops of wheat and maize, so the seemingly barren fields are actually being tilled and planted, but it looks desolate and dead. The farmers are primarily Hui people, a Muslim ethnic minority here in northwestern China, I haven’t actually seen too many of the Hui, aside from tilling their dusty roadside land on the drive in.

The land is spotted with earthen made greenhouses, that are simply huge. I first thought they were giant kilns like I saw in remote Gansu, but from looking at the other side, one can see the arced plastic wall with a small opening where I could glimpse the little green buddlings growing inside. The village we went to today did not appear to have these giant greenhouses.

After arriving to Zhongwei, we almost immediately headed to dinner, although we were all tired, drunk, and stuffed from lunch. We had to endure the customary meal and drinks here in Zhongwei with the county deputy of water resource, who is also the municipal secretary of the communist party. This guy was a sight. A body like a big sack of potatoes with a belt cinched around his mid-section, a mouth full of rotted out teeth, and a scar across his left earlobe where someone, something, had clearly taken a big bite! He was crass, a drunk, and obstinate about everyone drinking and playing dice with him, under threat of his verbal lashing if you did not. I had the joy of sitting next to him, his noxious breath, flying mucouses and yelling voice. The other official from Ningxia Province that is accompanying us, I will never forget as he has a big puss sore under his left nostril, that does not stop him from picking his nose in plain view and inflaming his puss sore.

The village today was a practice run for the enumerators, and not in the actual sample. It was dilapidated and poor, with a flashy village leader with a shiny jogging suit and a palm pilot phone. They must import and place these guys in the villages, this guy had clearly not been raised on a farm, the state of one’s finger nails always tell the story! He had the plump fleshy arms and manicured nails of a bureaucrat, as opposed to the wirey-armed farmers with soil filled nails embedded in crusted over cuticles. It was so surreal to hear my survey questions read out loud, and responded to by farmers. The farmer I listened in on laughed at my questions! It will be interesting to see what comes of these responses.

LJ has been chatting with more of the officials, I hope to have a chance to inquire with her, about more of the conversations she has been having. Especially about flows of money, and job tenure. It would be great to find out more – through her in an informal way. Signing off from a dusty place!