DM Monitoring
TIANJIN: Graduating in 2018 with a master’s degree in environmental science, Luo Yincheng did not seek a “decent” job with an Internet enterprise or a university. Instead, he chose to work in a poor village in southwest China’s Yunnan Province.
Luo, a member of the Communist Party of China, is among many college graduates in China who choose to serve the countryside through a national program of selecting excellent college graduates to rural areas for a short term to hone their skills and cultivate young talent.
The graduates work at the grassroots level to accumulate experience for some time, before being selected to different job positions at various levels.
However, when Luo made the decision two years ago, he had no idea what true poverty was.
On Feb. 25, 2019, he journeyed to the outlying Huangbanping Village in Ninglang Yi Autonomous County, over 2,800 km away from Tianjin, where he took his master’s degree at the Tianjin University.
This was also when he began keeping a diary on his poverty-relief mission.
Luo took a car to the village from Lijiang, about 120 km away. “The narrow mountain road was full of hairpin turns, with a steep cliff on one side and a valley down below,” recalled Luo. “On the 20-km road crossing the Jinsha River, we descended more than 1,000 meters. My ears ached just like when flying.” He vomited twice on the way.
Though a native of Yunnan Province, the then 26-year-old was astonished at what he saw. Most villagers lived in the valleys stuck between two craggy mountains, with little arable land, drinking water and access to the outside world.
The bunkhouse made of logs cut a couple of miles away in the forest was far from the modern concept of home. The men here have a year-round tan while women wear hats the size of kites to protect them from the burning sun.
The tap water was too muddy and had to be left for a night before being boiled. His room had no lock and there was a long crack on the wall stretching up to the ceiling.
When he woke up, he was often startled by the ants and spiders on his pillow.
