Life Is Just a Wholehearted Leap, Only to Be Caught by the Rice Paddy? | Food Talk Vol. 70

In 2019, Chen Xi first went to Qiandongnan in Guizhou and was dazzled by Yangdong Village’s paddy fields and rice. At the time, she had only just returned from the United States, where she had lived for eleven years, and was working in a Beijing office, in a job that had nothing to do with farming. Seven years later, she has built a wooden house in this Dong village and made a home there, growing and selling rice, and the library she built for the children is being renovated.

Chen Xi has a “terrifying” ability to get things done. She had never studied design, yet she dared to draw up the blueprints, and just like that built the wooden house in the mountains she had dreamed of. To help the village children spend less time scrolling through short videos, she used the money from selling 5,000 jin of purple rice to build the village’s first library. A senior figure advised her that “agroecology’s primary production can’t work”, but she did not believe it: “If it can move me, why can’t it move others?” Zhao Xi She is now largely self-sufficient.

Chen Xi is, of course, brave. But bravery alone is not enough; you also need patience, and that is what the land has taught her.

In Guizhou, single-crop rice is grown: sowing in spring, flowering in summer, threshing in autumn, and storing water in winter. Farming takes time, so she decided to give herself time.

The first three years ran at a loss, with experiments in the fields on old rice varieties from Liping County and the surrounding area. The first-year harvest was only a few dozen jin; sold at 30 yuan per jin, it came to just 2,000 yuan in the end.

It’s all right. Think of it as tuition. Move to another plot and sow a little more.

They now have nine rice varieties under stable cultivation, with a yield per mu of over 300 jin.

Seven years on, Chen Xi and Zhao Xi She have only just begun their own summer.

There is a Dong proverb, Angl xeenp weex xuh nyenc weex egs (the mountains and rivers are the masters, and humans are guests): Human beings are not the centre of this land; they are only temporary guests here. “When your ecological environment is well balanced, there is no need for much artificial intervention; you simply need to keep an eye on it.”

Chen Xi says she has been someone like this since childhood, “For a while, my profile signature was just ‘Forever living on the mountain peak’—meaning I could jump down at any time.” Now that she has come this far, she might as well take a wholehearted leap.

Welcome to the first episode of the “She and the Land” series. Perhaps Chen Xi’s life choices and attitude may bring you a little inspiration.

(This conversation was recorded in April this year. The wooden house in the mountains was renovated, and Chen Xi returned to Beijing to take part in events for the International Year of Women Farmers. At the time, she was eager to rush back to the mountains: “If I don’t go back soon, all the bamboo shoots will be too old!”)

PS: The “Zhao” in Zhao Xi She is a local Dong generation name

01:35 From Beijing to Qiandongnan: one way to break down a family farm

04:00 First impressions of Yangdong Village: seeing you for the first time was simply too stunning

06:20 The catalyst for a full-time move to the mountains to become a villager: two spring bamboo shoots sent by her former contractor, now her husband

08:53 How much does it cost to build a wooden house in the village?

10:00 Can you build a house without studying architecture? The master carpenter who hides his achievements and fame

18:20 What to do when it rains? Thunder until the end of the world, power cuts and roof leaks are the price of living elsewhere

22:00 Want to build a library for left-behind children? Let’s sell 5,000 jin of purple rice first!

27:47 Zhao Xi She’s operations and cultivation model: “When the ecological environment is well balanced, there is no need for much artificial intervention.”

30:49 Local people have also started growing hybrid rice, and chemical fertiliser has spread into the mountains

32:00 “The mountains and rivers are the masters, and humans are guests”: Dong people, Han people and foreigners are all guests of this land

32:33 Dong people’s International Women’s Day: if you want to pass through here, pay a toll

34:36 The Dong view on festivals: celebrating life itself; if there is a festival, of course you must celebrate it! “When you come to my home, it’s a festival”

36:00 A classic East Asian family question: quitting a job in Beijing, marrying and moving to the Guizhou mountains to farm—what do your parents think?

38:00 A senior figure says agroecology in rice growing can’t make money at all: “If this can move me, why can’t it move others?”

41:50 Who says the varieties we grow are old? These varieties are quite good!

44:58 The world is my oyster; pry it open with courage and the ability to get things done

46:00 The biggest challenge in agriculture is time: farm for a year, harvest 2,000 yuan—who wouldn’t break down?

48:33 Farming means making wishes to nature: ask for sunshine in summer and no rain for the autumn harvest

51:14 “I can keep going on an Odyssey; I don’t want that finish line to find me”

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