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GLOSSARY China glossary |
transcript |
| Section 1 | Site: Su Zirong's home, Haiga team, Fale village |
Introduction During an earlier interview, the team leader of Faga team found us another narrator. Her Han Chinese was very good. There was no language barrier; in only a few parts did we need the interpreter to explain anything to us. She expressed herself quite well, and talked about many issues in concrete terms. Her conversation had a clear logic and she could speak to the point. The whole interview went smoothly. |
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What's your name? Guangzhen. |
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How old are you? My age? My age is 45. |
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How many people are there in your family? There are five now, not including those who have married and left. |
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There are five now, who are they? A boy and two girls. |
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And your man (husband). How old are the boy and girls? The youngest one is around 15 or 16. |
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All are not studying now? No. |
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Did they ever attend school? The boy attended school, the youngest boy. |
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Girls? They didn't attend the school. |
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Didn't you allow them to study? Our living condition were bad, the school was far away. If girls go out, they will be bullied by bad people. [It is] more than 10 km away, you could say, to go to the school. |
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| Section 2 | Did you ever go to school? No. |
You never went. What are your children doing now? They are doing working in the fields in this village. |
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They are doing field work in this village. They didn't go to the town? No. |
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Did they go to Lushan to carry charcoal? When we need money, they’ll go. When we don't need money, they are needed to do the field work here. If you want to eat, you need to work. |
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Oh. They don't go there often. You have no crops to eat if you don't do field work, especially when relatives come and visit. |
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Do your family have many relatives? We don’t have many relatives, but more than a few. We have some. |
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Do your relatives often visit each other? They often do. |
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Who’s the head of your family? Are you? The man. How big a family could a woman head? [laughs] We just cook the meals. |
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You do the cooking. Do you do the field work? I do some field work. Who will give you food if you don't do the field work? |
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Does the man do more or the woman do more in your family? In our family, we do field work together. [laughs] |
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Together? When you use the buffalo to plough the fields, you need to drive it from behind, we do it together. |
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How many buffalo do your family have? One. One horse and one buffalo. |
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Do you have goats? Yes. |
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How many? Altogether 15. |
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| Section 3 | How about chickens? Do you raise chickens? We have ducks too, and chickens. |
Oh, ducks, how many ducks? We have geese too. |
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How many geese? Two. |
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Do your family has a dog? Yes. |
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Your family has a dog? There are many families in the village which have dogs, right? Fewer families have dogs now. |
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Why do fewer families have dogs? I cannot explain it clearly. There are many mice in the mountain They harm the grain. We put poison down so their number decreased. (They died of rat poison.) |
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If you think there are too many mice, are there any ways to solve it? [Voice is too low; cannot hear] |
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Did you ever think about raising cats? I have a cat. |
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You have a cat? Probably there are only a few cats around? Cats are raised in the yard every year. |
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Are your grains sufficient to eat? Oh, if you said that the grains are sufficient to eat in this place, it would be a lie. |
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Every family does not have enough food (is not self-sufficient in food)? Every family does not have enough food (is not self-sufficient in food). |
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How much land does your family have? Land, not much; Haiga team has less land. |
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How many mu (1 mu equals 0.067 hectares) of land does your family have? How many mu of land? I'm not sure about this. We talk about baocan (“responsibility for produce”). |
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Oh, so every one in your family has responsibility? Everyone has. Now it's five people's responsibility (ie under the household responsibility system, the total yield of her family is the produce of five people). |
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| Section 4 | All have responsibility. What do you plant? En? |
What do you plant in the fields? Corn, potatoes, buckwheat. |
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Do you grow vegetables? We grow some. You have to work hard. You can grow vegetables only if you work hard. If you don’t grow them well, you won’t be able to eat. You have to seize the season, because in this cold mountain area, the frost is heavier. If you plant it late, you’ll have no yield. Frost comes even in August and September. |
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Are there much rain in summer? Much rain. |
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Much. The rain, when it's heavy, it flows down the mountain slope. Few woods are left. |
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Is there a lot of grass here? Grass? What grass is there? |
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Where do you pasture the livestock? In the past, we took the livestock to Yinukou for grazing. In the past, that whole area was used for pasture. That was allocated, that area was allocated to us. But now the goats in this village are all taken there. Now it's difficult to find a place for grazing. But I saw a grassland which was allocated for pasture. We pasture the livestock there, down the slope of this team. Now when we pasture the livestock, even if you only have one animal, you have to stay there to keep watch. You have to stay and watch over them if you have eight or 10 animals; you have to watch them even if you have three or four. |
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Who in your family pastures the livestock? My man (husband) pastures the livestock. |
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Do you go? I cannot run with him (catch up with him) [laughs]. |
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How about the children? Children? Not many children do it. Girls cannot handle it. Now there are many young men [roaming around]. She's afraid, she dare not to go. Sometimes she's not afraid, but she... |
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Do you take your chickens to sell? You sell chickens when you have no money to use. |
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All will be for sale? All will be sold. We can only raise chickens to sell; we cannot make money by other means. |
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| Section 5 | Do you eat the chickens too? How many can you afford to eat? We’ll kill one or two when relatives come. If no one comes and you kill chickens to eat, you cannot make money. We have no money. In this place, because there is no road, living conditions are worse [than other areas]. Everything needs to be carried by people. There are potatoes but they are too heavy to carry. If there is no horse, you cannot carry them by yourself. People here just raise some chickens, sell them and then buy some salt or small things like that. We have to buy salt and hot peppers from the market. Living conditions are bad. |
Besides selling chickens, from what other ways could you earn money? Sometimes we’ll sell grain, but sometimes we need to buy grain. |
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What grain do you sell? We sell buckwheat - buckwheat and things like that. How can we have corn to sell? We need to buy corn to eat. |
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How much money can you get by selling this stuff in a year? It can’t be counted. You sell them once in a while. You can count the total. Sometimes we sell them for 20 or 30 yuan; sometimes10 or 8 yuan. How much can you carry for sale if you have to carry it all by yourself? |
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Does your man earn some money? He doesn't go out (migrate), so he cannot earn money. |
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Do you think about allowing your children to go to the town to make money? All of them don't go. |
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They don't go by themselves? Because it's far away, so they don't go. |
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Are you from this village? Yes, I’m from this village. |
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Does your family need to fetch drinking water? They fetch it. The water is very far from here: 20 or 30 km, not less than 15 km. |
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Who goes and fetches water usually? It is carried by horses. Sometimes after you have carried one bucket of water back, you have no time to do anything else. A few years ago, some people came to investigate the water sources, they wanted to help us to channel the water here. But they didn't do it finally. |
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If some sort of organisation from outside came to help you, what's the thing you would want most? For the village? You said if they came to do good things for us? |
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If Oxfam wanted to do some projects, what do you think would be best to do? Well, our living condition is worse. If they do according to our thoughts…our condition is too bad…it’s better to build a road. And to connect electric power here; to channel water to us, channel [water] to our homes. Our workload is too much to finish. Some [of us] really don’t have any resources. Only the higher authority people can help. It's impossible for us ourselves to put things forward, because it's hard to get money. Where can we get so much money to do these things? If it would be possible [laughs], if the higher authority could help us, put the road through for us, connect the electric power for us, and draw the water up here for us, then we could have some resources, and probably we could do some work to improve our lives. If there is water, people can use it to plant some grain, feed the livestock, and for drinking - that's not bad. |
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| Section 6 | Did you deliver your child on your own? Or did you deliver it at the hospital? On my own. |
Did someone come and assist? No. |
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No? Everyone is like this? I'm afraid that you know more. Isn't there a midwife in the village? There isn't now. For those who had difficulties giving birth, the midwife might go and have a look. |
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Did you go to assist in delivery? I used my own traditional way; I didn’t have any medicines [laughs]. |
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You know about the indigenous (local/traditional) medical treatments, don't you? A little. I go to help when the person is having difficulties in delivery. |
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Did people come to ask you or do you take the initiative to go? How could I know if people didn't come to ask for help? |
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When you went to help people to deliver the child, did people pay you money? I won't ask for it. |
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You won't ask for money but you just help? Sometimes when people had a difficult delivery, I just helped and made her better [laughs]. I couldn't do anything. I won't ask for money, I just help. |
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Do many women have diseases here? Do you know? You do the child delivery - how about women's diseases? I don't know much about this. |
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What kind of paper do you use when you are in the monthly period? Do you have the paper? I don't use paper. |
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What do you think about the health situation here, and other aspects? What good conditions do we have? Now the conditions are worse. If there were medicines, we could just take some medicine. The conditions are worse. Everything needs money. The hospital is far away. You say there is no accessible road, but if a seriously sick person needs to go to the hospital, it takes at least 15 or 16 people to carry him or her. The conditions are really worse. |
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| Section 7 | If you want to go to a hospital, do you all go to the county hospital? To Lushan. |
Is there a hospital in Lushan? No one goes to Lushan. They all go to Yancang, all went to Yancang. |
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Is Yancang another township? Or a village? Yancang..? [She asks the interpreter] |
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Yancang used to be in the same area as Lushan. But now they have separated, Lushan is a township, Yancang is another one. I can only say township. |
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Do you go to the hospital when you get sick? No, just leave it when I get sick. |
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Just now she [referring to Decong, the first narrator] said that there are some local (indigenous) doctors? The local doctors know little, know little about herbal medicine. The herbs can hardly be found. Some people get well after taking the herbs; some cannot. The seriously ill patients will go to the hospital. |
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Is there a baima (someone who deals with the spirit world)? Do they do the spirit dance? (traditional ritual to do with saying goodbye to the spirit of the dead person?) Not in our team. There are a few in this big team and this village. There are only religious followers here [in our team]. Many people believe in Christianity. |
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Do you believe yourself? Yes. |
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Do you think it's good to be religious (here meaning Christian)? En (yes). |
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What benefits did people get after they became religious? Benefits? There are many benefits for people in being religious. |
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Can you say some of them? My view is that the followers won't hurt people, they won't do harm to people. They are not greedy, they don't steal. They plant for themselves. If you do the spirit dance, you have to pay much money. If an old person dies, one needs to pay several hundred yuan to get them to dance. This is not good. We Christians, if we help people, they would just need to pay 2 or 3 yuan, 8 or 10 yuan. We love people from the heart. |
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| Section 8 | Is it popular to do the spirit dance when people die? No, the followers [Christians] go to church. We organise to bury the dead person, that's all. We don't do other things. |
Has a daughter in your family been married off to another place? To Ziakuan, not far from here. |
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Was there much dowry when you married your daughter off? What dowry? Our living conditions were difficult; we could only afford to give her some used family (household) stuff. What else was there? There was nothing. |
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When you sent your daughter away, did the man's family give betrothal gifts to you? He gave some money and a few clothes. |
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Will you help your unmarried sons to find wives, or will they look for them by themselves? To get a daughter-in-law? It’s alright if the two old people (parents) agree. |
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It’s fine if they can get you two old people’s approval? En. |
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Is there difference in having a son or a daughter? Well, there is no difference, all are the same. We treat them equally. I think it's the same. |
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How many pigs do your family kill in a year? I didn't count. If we have good luck, we harvest more grain, then we can buy more livestock. If the pigs don’t have disease, we can have two to kill in a year. If they got sick and die, then we don’t have any to kill. Usually we’ll have one or two. |
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When you kill a pig, is it common to invite people for a meal? Well, we call the brothers, the brothers’ families, and children. They all come to enjoy the meal. |
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Can you make clothes? Your national costume? No. |
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I saw the clothes of you two are different, what's the difference? This one? People have different ways to make it, there are many styles. I could make our costume in the earlier days. But now I'm old. Now my eyes are not bright, I cannot see. |
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Do you want to teach your daughter to make it? My daughter - she knows how to make it. |
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Can she? Did you teach her? She learned it by herself. |
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| Section 9 | Can she embroider? I noticed that the young people wear the clothes with patterns, and the old people wear the clothes without patterns? What is the difference? What patterns can old people wear? Only the young people wear [patterns]. |
The headdress - is the headdress for married people only? There is no specific custom in the headdress. I see all are the same. |
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She's already married, but she doesn't have the headdress. There's only a trace of the tradition left (meaning only a few people follow the tradition passed on by the older generation). Rural children are not too fastidious about wearing the headdress; they dress in a simple way. |
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Do you know all the people in this village? I know few. I seldom go out. |
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Do people at your same age get together to chat? Rarely. |
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Rarely? When you want to ask for help, who will you go to? We ask anyone for help. You help me and I help you, just like this. People will help if she or he is free. If they are not free, I’ll do it by myself. The same goes for myself. When I'm free I'll go to help [others] even if they don’t ask. I’ll see whether my own work can be finished, I might leave them and go to help others - leave my work and help others. |
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During which period of time people are less occupied here? Which season? Which season? |
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Like now, for example, you are in the busy season for farming. This season is for planting corn. |
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Isn't it busy in winter for planting? In winter, you cannot plant anything. You must follow the climate. Once you plant the potatoes, you start to plant the corn. You plant the buckwheat immediately after the corn. You cannot have good yields if you don’t catch the right time for planting. |
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Do you know she (Zhonglan) is the women’s officer (responsible for coordinating all the government’s assigned tasks among women)? Make the wool thread? She can do [mishears, then says after Zhang explained] Ya! I know her. |
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You know her? We two are from the same place. |
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Do you know the village leaders in this village? [doesn't understand, Zhang interprets] Don't know. Our team (cluster or group, made up of several households) is Chen Pu. |
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| Section 10 | You don't know the others? Which family has the best time in your village? Well, here the conditions are too bad, no family has an easy time. Our team has the most difficult living conditions. The houses haven't been changed up till now. They are the same as they were 10 years ago, they haven't undergone any changes (improvements). If it was easy, the houses would have been changed. No other things could be changed. Nothing has changed. Those livestock have no place to shelter. We have livestock but no sheds for them. My goats are tied to the door [laughs]. Horses are tied to the door too. Even in two or three years’ time we won’t have the resources to build a better house. |
If you tie the livestock outside - when it's very cold in winter, what will you do then? In winter, they are tied up in the house. There is a sty for the pigs and a pen for the goats. It's too small for the large livestock. |
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How many years ago was this building built? They are old houses. They were here when we first came. |
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You probably came [here] earlier than others. Were there trees when you came? There were some at that time. At that time, you could hardly see stones exposed on the slope. Now, it has become barren. There are no trees. Nothing. No resources but just a cold mountain area. |
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Have you ever been to other mountains, which are not as high as this? A village located at a comparatively flat area? Somewhere different from here? Zaikuan is higher than here. But their animal husbandry is quite well developed. Their houses are better built than those here. No one does business here, no one does.... All of us do the field work, no one goes out (travels outside the area for work). |
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Why didn't you develop animal husbandry? I see there are big areas of grassland? Develop animal husbandry? The grasslands had all been distributed, as I said earlier. In the past, the grasslands were all distributed. Now they are other people's land. |
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If we want to organise the women to do something to improve their lives, what do you think it's good to do? Such as something which can make money? If...well, if you ask them to do business, or make any deals, it's hard. Many people are not suited to do that kind of thing. Doing business will not work; it’s better to develop in animal husbandry, which can be managed at home. |
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You still think it's better to develop in animal husbandry, don't you? To develop in animal husbandry, you can stay home to raise some chickens, pigs, goats, buffaloes and horses. Then you take some to sell, and that's [how you get] the money. What else can we do? We need to develop in animal husbandry. |
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Do livestock fall ill here? Yes. |
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| Section 11 | If the livestock suffer some common and infectious diseases, what will you do? There is no treatment. If your livestock have the disease, you can only drag it along. If it cannot be kept going any more, you can only let it go. |
There is no medicine? No medicine. When you go to get medicine, it [will have] died when you come back. The hospital is far away. It’s not easily accessible. |
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No hospital? If there was a hospital, then animal husbandry can be developed. |
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Will you be willing to learn if someone comes to teach you how to raise chickens and pigs, and how to raise them well? Yes. |
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Did someone do that before? Did people from the Animal Husbandry Bureau do such work? They didn't do it before. |
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Are there any techniques for growing crops? Techniques for growing crops? We can only use buffalo to plough the land. People use their hands and tools to dig the fields, which are stony. |
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Do you use a lot of chemical fertiliser? It's good to use chemical fertiliser, but our financial situation cannot catch up (keep up with the cost); otherwise it would be great. |
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Do you use plastic film when you plant corn? Yes, it's very good to use the plastic film. But we cannot afford to buy it. When we have no money, we cannot get any money to buy it. Otherwise, it should be much better to use the plastic film. |
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I saw some people using plastic film. The used plastic films are left at the roadside, do you think that's good for the fields? Those used films which were not pulled out from the soil? It's not good if you don't pull them out. You need to pull them out. If you have time, you pull them out, you can re-use them to make strips for tying livestock [laughs]. If you don't pull them out, the land cannot be used to plant next year. [Pauses for a while.] The living conditions are too bad here. Otherwise, we could use the plastic film which is really good. The crops can grow well in the places where the soil quality is better. Crops cannot grow well in the infertile soil. In terms of fertiliser, we need chemical fertilisers, and we need organic manure too. We need both. We have used the plastic film for a few years. We bought the film from other people. We bought them from other places. |
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It was bought from other places. Are the breeds of corn, and potato you plant the same as before? The same. |
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| Section 12 | The same? Are there any new breeds (varieties)? There are no new breeds. |
There are none. Do you think the taste of the crops is as good if you use chemical fertiliser? The same. [Pauses.] For the fields where you use chemical fertiliser, if you don't continue to use chemical fertiliser, you will have no yield. We have to use it. |
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Do you think this is a kind of disadvantage? Why disadvantage? It's not good if you don't use it. It will be good only after you use it. |
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But you have to use it every year. What would you do when you don't have chemical fertiliser? When you cannot afford to buy it? We’ll use the organic manure when we don't have the chemical one. We have livestock. |
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Yes. If something has the potential to be developed, we would want it. Just afraid the people don't work hard enough. |
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Do you think people here are all hardworking? Well, people are hardworking, but there is no yield. This area is high and cold. People are very hardworking here. We work harder than others. In other villages, people can yield much grain from one day's work. Here, we work many days but still cannot yield as much as theirs in one day's work. Down there, people who plant 5 to 6 jin of seeds will harvest over 10 mu of grain. The yield of seeds from 1 mu of land can then be sown over 10 mu. However, in this village, we can only yield 5 to 6 mu at most. Even if you plant well, you cannot harvest a lot. [Pauses for a while.] |
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Can every woman make this [sweet wine on the table]? This is sweet corn wine. Can everyone make this? If you have grain, who cannot make it? If there is no grain, what can you use to make it? We can also use rice to brew wine (alcohol). |
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Do you use the corn to brew wine? Yes. |
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Is there a particular family who brews it? No, we’ve got no water. |
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No water. Does your man drink alcohol? No. He's religious. He doesn't smoke either, doesn't drink. |
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All followers (meaning Christians) don't smoke? En. |
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Besides Yi nationality, are there any other nationalities in your village? There are Han, there are a few Han families. |
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| Section 13 | There are a few Han families. Do you think there are differences between Han and Yi family? Well, there is no difference. We people here are the same. |
Do Yi people mix with Han through marriage? Yes, there are some [examples] of this kind of marriage. It depends on the feeling of liking between two people; it doesn't matter whether they are Miao, Yi or Hui (one of the largest minority groups, Muslim). |
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People don't care. Oh. [Laughs.] They don't care about it. All of us are in one family. |
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Since your family are religious, is it that you must be religious, or not? This depends on people's own choice, you cannot force them. |
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Can you find one who's not religious? En. |
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Do people look for a love partner in the same village? Or in other villages? I don't know much about young people's affairs. It depends on the old people's... [cannot hear clearly] |
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Are there any customs for this (to help young people meet)? Well, nothing in particular. There’s just the market, where people can have more choice (can meet more people). Anyhow, a young man will be invited there to play the hulu (musical instrument made from the “bottle” gourd). Now young people have a wider acquaintance with people. The kids in the village go from this village to that village. They go around and get to know people, and can get married. Now many people get to know each other on their own. There is no arranged marriage. They marry according to their own choice - who dares to make arrangements? In the past, the parents would force [you to agree] and arrange a marriage for you. |
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How about you? About your generation? We still listen to our parents. |
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Do people get married at an early age here? Such as sons and daughters, at what age do they get married? What age do they get married? About 20, or over 20. Many get married around 20 to 21 or 22. |
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Are there people who got married at a very young age? There were some people who were not very thoughtful and had married off their children at the age of 17, 18. If the parents were more thoughtful, they wouldn't marry off their children at the age of 17, 18. [They should be] at least 20, or over 20. |
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I heard that only people who are 18 or over can go to church? Yes. |
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| Section 14 | Why is there such rule? Because he cannot follow, he cannot follow if he's not reached the age. He cannot follow the rules. Our church, the group of people - all do things according to the policy. |
If the religious people do things against the religion, and do bad things, will they be punished? The government has laws to punish them. |
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Do you think there are difference between the religion and the government's laws? There is no difference between the religion and the government's laws. |
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No. Do you know there are special laws to protect women? You say there are laws to protect women in particular? Yes, it’s much better now. Now, women, those who are old now, according to the old custom, if you dared to go out, buying stuff, doing all the work which should be done by men, people would put pressure on her. Now men and women are equal. She could do anything she likes. It's better now. You can do any business you like if you have the ability to do it. And women receive more care. There are rarely any women who are abused and cursed. If this was not because of the care (concern) from the government, how could it be like this? Besides, with the help of family planning, women are more relaxed (less pressured). It is just that the living conditions are worse here. You cannot get anything to eat if you don't work. In the places where the living conditions are good, only men work, women don't work. |
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If something happened in the village or within the family, to whom will you go to ask for some solution? There is no such thing happened here. |
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Aren't there quarrels and fighting? Who comes to solve these family affairs? If something serious happens, the village leader would come to resolve it. There are team (cluster or group, made up of several households) leaders too. |
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Is the social atmosphere good here? En. we all know the policy, we won't go against government policy. One will do what is allowed; one won't do what isn’t. Those who are against the policy, [but] as we seldom meet them, we won't know their story. If it's someone we meet often, we'll know immediately when we see him. You don't know those whom you don't meet. |
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What is the deepest impression in your memory? Can you remember? What is the most unforgettable thing? It's... well, you can hope for it but you cannot make it materialise. People should do more for the future generation. The life – [to] make life better, build houses. This is life. There is nothing else. Just these three things: maintain our livelihood, build nice houses, give good things to the children - just these things. I don't have any memory) that I cannot forget in my life, just these. |
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| Section 15 | What's the thing which you were happiest with? The happiest thing will be to maintain our livelihood, to raise these livestock well, to build houses. But if there are no resources, you cannot achieve these. |
What's your greatest difficulty? En? |
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The most difficult thing you have to tackle? The most difficult thing is the financial situation. The financial situation is the most difficult part. |
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Do you think that all people have similar financial situations? Well, the most difficult ones are only those who are very poor; those who live alone. Others are almost (about) the same. |
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Are there people who live alone? Oh, people who live alone are the wubaohu households (literally “five-guarantee” households, elderly people living alone, eligible for government support in five areas: food, clothing, housing, medical care and burial services). |
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Oh, households enjoying the five guarantees. Now the family with the most difficulty is Li here, a man who lives alone. His son died, and now his daughter-in-law has gone. Only an old man lives alone. |
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How does he make his living? There is another household enjoying the five guarantees. He never married. |
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Never married? The old man is dying. Now he cannot work. At this time his niece is helping him. No one else. |
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No one else? Don’t other people in the village help him? When there is relief aid from the higher level government, the villagers will spare [some of] that to him. |
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No others take care of him? Others, in the team, this family and that family give food to him. He eats what people give to him. He has nothing. His fields - he cannot farm, he has no energy to farm. |
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If a family has many sons, when the family is divided, who would take care of the parents - in cases where the parents are not able to work? When they can work, they make their own living. When they cannot work, all their sons come to take care of him. If they were not being taken care of by all their sons, the family who took the parents’ land would take care of them. |
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| Section 16 | Is there any custom which says that usually the eldest son will take care of the parents? Or the youngest son does? That's the old custom. Now it's common that one family has three to four sons. All the sons share the responsibility; each son’s family supports [them for] one month. If not, the elderly parents would live with the family which took over their land. |
Do you think all young people are kind to the old people now? I cannot say this definitely - some are kind; some are bad. |
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Are there bad as well? I cannot say clearly who’s good and who’s bad. [For example] He doesn't curse the old people, he doesn't beat the old people, but he doesn't cook for them either. Sometimes he probably dares to curse the old people. But he doesn't cook for them. Like in our family, the family property is owed by the youngest, so his family is responsible. The old people live with him. |
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Do the sons usually separate from the family and live apart? Oh. |
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Is it a custom to separate the families? Or would he put forward the idea after he got married? It’s a custom. |
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It’s a custom that all will live apart from the family? Yes. |
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Who comes to divide the family up here? The old people (parents) divide it up. |
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Oh, just the old people in the family? Oh, old people. [Pauses] Our family has four brothers. The house was given to the eldest, the lands were given to the youngest. We - the second and third ones - didn't want anything, we didn't want it ourselves. We didn't want any property either. Not even one litre or half a bowl of corn (very small amount), we didn't want anything. We want to build up our lives by our own efforts. |
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Is there anything that I didn't ask you about which you want to speak out? [doesn't understand at first; Zhang interprets] Things to speak out? My wish is that the higher authority (governments) could help us to build the water system. |
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To build the water system? You mean the water pipes? Oh, to set up water pipes, that's our greatest expectation. The water is too far away from here, 10 km away in Lushan. If the weather gets cold, we cannot get the water. Young people have horses. Those who don't raise livestock cannot do anything else after they have spent time carrying one bucket of water back. Another wish is to have electric power. These all depend on the higher authority (government). And to build the road too. My own thought is about working. We want to work to maintain our livelihoods and raise livestock. The livestock need grain. Everything needs grain. It's no good without grain. You cannot afford to feed the livestock if there is no grain. |
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| Section 17 | Nothing else you want to say? We are almost done. Thank you. |
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