In Manchuria (45 page)

In the police station, the officer stopped typing. “There's a field to enter a house number, but we don't have those out here,” she said. “I'll say you live in Wasteland.” My address was just a place name, like Santa's.

The officer made small talk, asking why I didn't yet have a child. She wondered what I was really doing in Wasteland, alone. Her tone changed from warm to icy: Was I a missionary? “You must be a missionary. Do you understand that proselytizing is illegal? Understand? What religion are you? Can you prove you're not affiliated with a church group?”

I pleaded innocent. “Enter my English name into Baidu.”

On the popular search engine's Web page, the officer saw pictures of my dilapidated Beijing courtyard, and snapshots of me teaching English to retirees in the neighborhood. News items in Chinese described the book I had researched there.

“Oh, you're just a writer,” the woman said, sounding relieved. It was the first time I had heard someone say that in China.

 

“Let's talk to the boss,” Dr. Liu said, pulling out her cell phone. Eastern Fortune's agronomist was leading me through the hot spring's greenhouses, reeling off statistics from the harvest. After growing six acres of rice at its founding, the company had just harvested
1
,
200
acres. “The boss can tell you what we're planning next.” She put her phone to her ear. A “
Wei!
” in greeting, followed by a series of “
Uh
s” in rising inflection settled the matter. “He'll meet us in the garden.” She led me past banana trees, under grape trellises, to a thatched-roof pavilion and wicker chairs. Recorded birdsong filled the air. Dr. Liu stooped to pick a ruby strawberry.

Liu Yanfeng stepped through the plants and shook my hand. He was Eastern Fortune Rice's general manager, the second-in-command after his older brother, the company's cofounder. Boss Liu motioned to a carved wood table and said, through a self-effacing giggle, “Sit down, please,” in heavily accented English. “That's about all I remember how to say,” he admitted, switching to Chinese.

Boss Liu looked the part: barrel-chested, with black crew-cut hair carpeting a round, ruddy face and a pug nose. “I'm a simple guy,” he said, pulling with thick arms at the T-shirt he wore belted into black slacks. “I wear these clothes every day, unless I have a business meeting.”

Two waitresses appeared bearing plates of peeled bananas, watermelon, and strawberries. “We grew these here,” Boss Liu said, lighting a cigarette. He smoked Red Pagoda Golds, which cost more than the Red Pagoda regulars, but not as much as a pack of Pandas. They were a brand popular with bosses—not ostentatious, but not proletarian, either. I declined his offer.

“That's right, I see you running all the time.” His arms mimed a jog. “I like to run, too. I wanted to talk to you about organizing a race here. A marathon, maybe.”

“It's a perfect place to run: flat, little traffic, places to get water. You would have a hotel and hot springs at the finish line.”

Boss Liu smiled. “Yes, let's talk about that. I'm in charge of promotions. The other day, Zhang Yimou was here filming a commercial for us.” He named China's most famous film director, the man who staged the opening ceremony of the
2008
Beijing Summer Olympics.

“He is a good friend. It would have been nice if you had met him. Next time.”

I nodded, remembering that Northeasterners were known as champion exaggerators. Boss Liu mentioned a famous pop star. “He came here last year. I sang a song with him.”

I thought of Auntie Yi's order to proclaim my intention to buy Eastern Fortune Rice in order to learn its true worth. Boss Liu looked far too savvy for that ruse. He told me to ask him anything, calling me his
gemen'r
—his bro.

“Will everyone have to move out of their homes and into the new apartments?”

“The problem that the central government wants to solve now,” Boss Liu said, suddenly officious, “is how farmers can generate a second income. We've tried the production team model of agriculture. That didn't work as well as the Household Contract Responsibility System, which we've used since
1984
, actually
1983
here in Wasteland. We were piloting reforms even then. I was born in
1972
and remember that time.”

I said we were the same age.

“Brothers!” He smiled, sliding the plate of sweet watermelon closer. “Have more. There is no shortage.

“The current system worked much better. Families here could farm a piece of land and earn a living. When our house made
10
,
000
yuan [$
1
,
641
] in a year for the first time, we felt like we were prosperous. Not rich, but stable. Now that's not enough—not when you have a child to put through school, or a car to buy, and other daily expenses. People want to generate a second income. Out here, we only farm less than half the year. And that's a second problem: Who is going to plant the fields in the future? People our age don't want to farm; they want to be in cities, making as much money as they can. No one wants their child to farm. This is an urgent problem.”

Boss Liu stubbed out his cigarette, replacing it in his mouth with a slice of watermelon. Between crunching bites, he slurped, “Our company—you know how it started, right? Now we have eleven enterprises under the original brand. It began as a village enterprise, and the village party secretary is on the board of directors.”

“Your brother, the company's cofounder.”

Boss Liu nodded. “Our goal is to lead Wasteland to prosperity.”

“Will everyone have to move out of their homes into the new apartments?” I asked again. “Or will they have a choice to stay?”

Boss Liu lit another cigarette. “We formed a holistic mechanized collective,” he said. I looked to Dr. Liu for help.

“It means cutting out manual labor.”

“‘Liberating the laborers' is how we say it,” Boss Liu corrected. “This is where Chinese agriculture is going, and we were among the first to experiment with it. It's why the leaders come visit: to see and encourage this model. By farming collectively, we have a lower overhead cost. The central government subsidizes some of it: we buy the equipment and pay a family
13
,
000
yuan [$
2
,
133
] annually to lease one
shang
[
1
.
6
acres] of their land. The government provides another
2
,
500
yuan [$
410
]. It's a three-year contract at those rates, adjusted the next cycle if the price of rice changes. A family has guaranteed income and can generate secondary income through other work.”

Boss Liu saw my mouth forming the question again.

“The central government likes this model,” he continued, “because a collectively sown crop can be better managed for safety and grown more efficiently. Farmers shift off the land and the younger generation can find other work that contributes to national growth. Risk is shifted away from the farmers and village government and onto the shoulders of companies looking for a return on their investment.”

I opened my mouth.

“I'm going to answer your question,” he said. “Improving farmers' living environment is also a goal. If they are not working the land, why do they have to live on it? They can move to a high-rise building with central plumbing and heat. Have you seen the new apartments we're building? Those are for the farmers. The former farmers. It's true that many people are not ready to accept a move into those buildings. Our job is to ease their worries and continue to develop the village so they will be willing to make the move, because they will see that their quality of life—their happiness index—will rise if they live there, such as having access to health care in the senior center. They can depend on receiving help. People will help them.”

“Many people enjoy having a garden to raise their own vegetables,” I said.

“In the future, they'll want to buy better-quality ones,” he replied. “Is this good watermelon?” he asked, pointing at the plate. “Better than any other you've had in October?”

“Yes, but watermelon isn't usually eaten in October—”

“Now it can be,” Boss Liu interrupted. “In the city, people go to Walmart and buy any fruit or vegetable year-round, imported from all over China and even the world. We can eat pineapple today, and apples, and mangoes. Shouldn't farmers eat like we do? Instead of cabbage all winter, and only cabbage? I grew up eating cabbage, and those days are behind us just like my parents' generation no longer has to live on sorghum and
wowotou
,” the rough cornmeal cakes.

Boss Liu had gathered steam, and I appreciated his willingness to talk frankly. Developers in China rarely discussed their plans. When I asked what Wasteland would look like in five years, Boss Liu leaned forward on the table, rocking on the balls of his feet in eagerness to reply.

“You won't recognize this place in five years. You're a teacher, so let's start with the kids. What about their schooling? Yesterday I signed an agreement with the principal of North China University in Jilin city. They'll move their affiliated elementary and middle school out here to a new campus we'll build. That's how we bridge the urban-rural gap. Now farmers want their kid to go to school in town, so they move away, our population decreases and gets old, and before you know it, our village is dead. That's happening across China.”

One-quarter of China's villages had emptied since
2000
. The nation targeted an urbanization rate of
60
percent by
2020
, an increase of
100
million people. But migrating to a metropolis would not mean an instant upgrade in living standards. The government forecast that by
2020
only
45
percent of China's overall population would be granted city-dweller status, with access to social services such as schools and hospitals.

Boss Liu had a better idea. “We'll bring the town out here,” he said. “We'll build a modern campus run by city-experienced teachers. If the students test into the nation's top universities, they'll go there, but if not, they'll have guaranteed enrollment at North China University downtown. It's known for its foreign language department and also traditional Chinese medicine studies. Both degrees will help them find jobs.

“I'm also working on other ways to grow our population so people won't migrate. This is a big issue in China now. The cities are filled with migrants, and the central government wants urbanization to happen at the village level. ‘Don't move to a city, build a city.' We'll do it here. First, we can merge the area's villages so our population number is higher. We could probably have
30
,
000
people total in fifteen years, instead of
2
,
000
here in Wasteland and a few thousand more in Lonely Outpost, and so on. A higher population can attract investment, because the work pool is larger, and the central government would help support infrastructure costs.

“The urban real estate market is saturated, and city people have nowhere to invest their money, because there are limits on how many apartments you can own. At the same time, city people want to come to the countryside to relax on the weekends. The logical next step is to develop real estate here. We'll build a resort village like they have in Europe. That will require a supermarket, so I have plans for that, and also a stadium, and a theater.”

“It sounds just like the city,” I said, watching Boss Liu nod. “Why would people buy a vacation home in an area that looks like where they live during the workweek?”

“A lake,” Boss Liu replied. “We're going to build a big lake, and beside that, a hill. We don't have hills out here, right? It's totally flat.”

“The foothills are nice. Have you been out—”

“So I'm building an artificial hill,” Boss Liu continued. “The lake will have boats on it in summer, and in winter people can ski on the hill. We will be at the forefront of agricultural tourism.”

I told Boss Liu it was a terrible idea. It was neither renewable nor sustainable, and Chinese consumers faced an array of destinations across their enormous country and, increasingly, abroad. I didn't say that he sounded like a little boy playing make-believe in a sandbox, building a magical world named Rice Land.

“You're wrong,” Boss Liu said, smiling. “I'm telling you, I just returned from Hong Kong, where I found an investor for the entire plan. His company will invest; we'll provide the land and get the approvals from the government. Officially, this will all turn into a development zone.”