China has 900 million farmers that want to read stories like
My Old Hometown (Guxiang) by famous Chinese
writer Lu Xun. But currently the number of writers interested in
writing about rural life is shrinking in Chinese mainland.
Some literary critics believed such phenomenon reflected that a
huge economic gap and different cultural taste still existed
between cities and rural area. In recent years, although China's
rural area has witnessed great changes, fewer and fewer writers
have paid their attention to the countryside. When local
governments are focused on economic developments in cities during
the opening-up, novels about city life and individualism are
flourishing, which make readers quite familiar with life in
metropolises. However, they know little about today's rural life
partly because literal works about the countryside are few.
Jia Pingao, a 54-year-old Chinese up-to-date littérateur, still
persists in writing about rural life. Jia, a descendent from a
rural family, has produced many popular literary works about rural
areas. He said, "Starting from Impulsive Life,
(Fuzao) I have written everything happening in rural areas
for 20 years, from land reforms in 1978 to the 1990s." His latest
work, Qin Qiang, a 400-thousand-word novel, describes the rural
life in the period of modernization and globalization. While
expressing sympathy for those farmers living under heavy burdens
and land loss, the author also discloses his worries about the
possible loss of rural cultures.
Jia said, "I hope several years later, farmers can become rich,
and their children can receive education. An exuberant rural area
can thus be built, where urbanization can be realized."
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(Chinanews.cn July 11, 2006)
