Cottage Industry We are visiting a commune farm near Taishan City which has some of the best examples of small-scale industry we have seen so far. (Yesterday, at another commune, we encountered a rather bizarre one-room toilet-paper factory which utilizes waste paper and local plant materials to produce a product with more resemblance to thin cardboard than to the fluffy stuff we are used to). Our visit to the farm is clearly a.major event for the'peasants, and, as is usual in travels around Taishan, we are treated very graciously. We learn that in addition to raising fish and a variety of livestock, the 270 people at the farm also operate a sugar refinery, · milk dairy and bean curd factory. The dairy consists of a small milk vat, a boiler, and racks of bottles. It is necessary for us to scale down our memories of dairies as huge factories to realize that this is indeed all there is: two workers boilin&, bottling, and capping in one bedroom-sized space. The bean curd factory and sugar refinery are somewhat larger with perhaps ten workers each. Here again, equipment is basic, consisting of little more than heating vats supplied with steam from the farm's central coal boiler. As is the case at many other facilities around Taishan, the farm is processing local products for.local people. Since the 1950s, rnnstruction of a vast array of dams, dykes and irrigation canals has tur_ned a formerly drought- and famine-ridden county into a selfsufficient bread basket. Small- to medium-scale industry has expanded in volume of production by more than 42 times, and much of what is produced is consumed within a radius of fifty miles. It's an impressive transformation by any standard, and the well-fed people we are meeting (some of whom remember the famine of 1943 in which 150,000 county residents died) are clearly proud of their agriculture and industry. Still, you quickly detect a sense among these people of living in a rather backward section of a backward country, and ·an inability to comprehend how much we·, who have come from the country they refer to as "the Golden Mountain," are admiring what we see. "So tell ine," blurts out one of our China Travel Service guides one evening, "why have you decided to travel all this ~stance to spend three weeks in south China?" Chinese Television and the Gang of Four It's 8 pm and time for the Gang of Four Show. We drop our other evening activities (such as washing our clothes by hand) and gather around the hotel television.set. The half-hour trial summary which appears each evening always tops the regular programming (a familiar mix of news, sports, situation comedy, documentaries and game shows) for drama, pathos, and even humor. John Ferrell February/ March 1981 RAIN Page 9 We've tried to persuade our China Travel Service guides to sit in one evening and translate for u~ but they always excuse themselves on other business. There seems to be a real nervousness about it. People here will readily tell you they don't like the Gang of Four, and they speak of the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76 as a time of chaos, but beyond that, there is little political comment. Perhaps we are too much outsiders to merit their trust, and perhaps, too, there is a prudent recognition that after a series of political "about faces" in China during recent years things said in the present could be remembered as heresy in the future. On the screen we see Jiang Qing, Mao's widow, tambasting the testimony of fellow defendants while a panel of judges cautiqns her to control herself. For a person on trial for her life, she looks magnificently defiant. The camera pans frequently over the impassive faces of the several hundred trial observers. The physical resemblance to the Senate Watergate hearings is striking, with a jolly-looking white-Ii.aired judge playing the Sam Ervin role, and defendants who, by their looks and mannerisms, could as easily be John Mitchell or H.R. Haldeman. Suddenly, the trial segment is over and we move into the commercials. Commercials??? Yes, Chinese television now has ''messages of interest" for such products as wristwatches, truck batteries and electric teapots. Furthermore, the truck battery commercial is done to the strains of "Oh, Susannah." Needless to say, it's all very jarring, but not as jarring as what we will witness two weeks later, standing outdoors in a commune village with several dozen peasants before a small black and white TV: an American police rescue drama, complete with helicopters, fast cars, scuba gear and tall, blond heroes with voices dubbed in Chinese! At the Hospital We arrive at the Taishan tity Hospital and are given a tour of several wards. The facilities seem pre.tty dingy by the standards to which we are accustomed, but "sterile" is a word with more than one meaning, and what the place lacks in antiseptic qualities is at least partially compensated for by a relaxed homey atmosphere in sharp contrast to the starkness we associate with hospitals at home. Particularly interesting is the mixture of western and traditional remedies in the hospital treatment regimen. In addition to an acupuncture clinic, there is an herbal medicine department and nearby, there is a garden where a variety of plants are being grown for medicinal extracts. While walking through the garden, we ask about one particularly attractive flower and our tour guide launches into a cont.--
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