HONG KONG: A group of impoverished Chinese peasants who travelled across China in a run-down three-wheeled tempo-trailer to Sichuan to help with relief efforts following the killer quake are now being feted for their spirit of volunteerism, which is not normally seen in China.
Ever since the May 12 quake tragedy in Sichuan in southwestern China, there have been countless tales in China of people contributing money and materials to the relief cause in a way they have not responded to past tragedies.
China’s new-rich drove down in their SUVs from Beijing with supplies of medicines, food and clothes, and much was made of the emergence in China of a new ‘people’s army’ of volunteers.
Despite the abundance of such feel-good stories, the particularly poignant narrative of the peasants from Shandong province, in China’s east, who drove 2,000 km in a battered automobile to lend a hand with relief efforts, has touched the hearts of millions of Chinese people because they come from an underclass that lives on the edge of poverty, and yet felt the urge to look beyond themselves.
On the night of May 12, barely hours after the quake devastated Sichuan, Liu Zhongming, a farmer in Ju county in Shandong province, enlisted volunteers from his village to go on a relief mission.
Ten other peasants signed on. Barely 24 hours later, the 11-man ‘people’s army’ set off in a three-wheel tempo-trailer with nothing more than some home-made Shandong bread, some water — and a selfless resolve to help the millions of their countrymen whose lives had been devastated.
Ten men piled into the rear compartment of their tiny trailer, to which was tagged a hand-written sign that identified them as the ‘Shandong Ju County Peasant Rescue Volunteers’. By law, a beaten-down vehicle such as theirs was not permitted on expressways, so they stuck to the highways, paying the highway and bridge tolls, a big expenditure for farmers in their condition.
Being unfamiliar with the route, which took them three days and nights to travel, they had to stop and ask for directions. And along the way, they were mocked by locals — for the condition of their vehicle, and in the belief they were just country bumpkins out for a lark.
Arriving in Sichuan, they waded into the relief effort in some of worst-affected villages — in Guangyuan, Mianyang and An. They help with moving supplies and setting up tents with a sense of tirelessness that has amazed other relief workers, and even moved hardened PLA soldiers to tears.
Zhongming, the head-farmer, says he isn’t sure when his ‘people’s army’ soldiers will return home, since “there’s so much to do around here.” Back at home, relatives were helping with the farmwork, he says. Other volunteers at the relief site said that the only expectation that Zhongming and his team had was that on the way home, they would not be required to pay the highway and bridge tolls!
On Internet forums and chatrooms, the simple-hearted and selfless service of Zhongming and his team has won high praise. “It took a band of hardy peasants to show China’s caring heart,” says one commentator.
