Chinanews.com, Beijing, September 20th. Title: Returning from a half-life one-legged trip: That is the Daliang Mountain that he can't get out of
China News Service reporter Wang Zumin
Twenty years ago, when the 16-year-old walked out of his hometown on the banks of the Yalong River and in the Daliang Mountains with the hot dreams of a teenager, he did not expect to come back again, let alone a pair of crutches to replace his left leg. .
10 years ago, when he became the only one-legged face-changing performer in the world, he did not expect that the inseparable future with him is not the facial makeup that contains traditional Chinese culture, but the mango that he was not familiar with at the time.
His name is Shu Fajun. He is the legal person and chairman of the Runjie Rich Peasant Mango Planting Cooperative in Dechang County, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, and the one-legged "Mango King" in Rehe, Dalian.
This year is the fifth year he has returned to start a business.
In order to fulfill the promise made more than a year ago, a reporter from Chinanews.com recently walked into his hometown of Mianhua Village in Rehe Township (previously Rehe Township), and listened to him telling a story that is as sad as the Great Liang Mountain but also contains power. s story.
Shu Fajun's "small goal" is to create the Jehol mango brand.
Photo by Wang Zumin
From the able-bodied to the disabled, his life is full of "sharp turns"
This is a late interview.
In 2018, the China Charity Federation and Tsinghua University jointly launched the "Leader Goose Project for Rural Revitalization". He became the first batch of outstanding students and entered Tsinghua University training in May last year.
The reporter met him at that time and promised to interview him at his mango base.
The mountain road from Dechang County to Rehe is rugged and steep and has many bends, just like his life path.
In 1984, he was born in Rehe Township, the most remote place in Dechang County, with an older sister whose father was a first-degree deaf-mute disabled person.
Shu Fajun participated in the speech contest.
Photo courtesy of Shu Fajun
"Poor" or outsiders' first reaction when talking about Daliang Mountain, but his poor childhood is the best time in his memory.
"My dad is smart and capable, and my mother is hardworking and optimistic. They gave me the best they can do and can get. The neighbors and villagers are simple and friendly, so I never realized that I was born in a disabled family. Seeing the water, raising his leg into the mountain, satisfied the curiosity and playfulness of a boy. So although he was poor at that time, he was very happy." He said.
And this warm memory that has been with him has also accumulated into the deep nostalgia that later prompted him to return.
At the age of 16, he encountered the first "curve" in his life.
Unable to afford the tuition, he was admitted to the county high school and was forced to drop out of school after barely studying in a technical school for half a year and set out to make a living.
Just a few months later, the second "sharp turn" came-a car accident that caused him to lose his left leg forever on March 13, 2001.
Later, his frustrated mother died of a cerebral hemorrhage when he just passed his 18th birthday.
He didn't want to drag his deaf-mute father, and he didn't want to live in the sympathetic eyes of the villagers every day. He walked out of the mountain again on a crutches.
Selling the sheep in the family to make money to open a restaurant, closed down because they didn’t understand the business; went to a credit union to take a loan to start a business, and was questioned about the ability to repay the loan, and was rejected; , He was penniless... Those few years were the gloomiest period in his life, and his despair far exceeded the six months he spent lying in the hospital bed after the car accident.
"At that time, I used to wake up my'mother' in the night, tearfully facing the darkness, that kind of loneliness and helplessness..." He shook his head and didn't want to continue.
What supported him to walk down was the 18-year-old "mature ceremony" at the cost of losing his mother: strength and responsibility.
"I am the only child in the family, even if I only have one leg, I must stand up!"
After introduction, he went to Liangshan Prefecture Disabled Persons' Federation for help and was arranged to learn massage.
After several months of training, he was the least favored transfer student to find a job in the same period.
After saving a little bit of money by eating frugally, he embarked on a trip to Chengdu at the end of 2006 and started another period of his life.
He originally went to the Chengdu Disabled Persons' Federation to recommend himself as an athlete, but he did not expect to become a dancer of the City Disabled Art Troupe with a Liangshan dance that he learned as a child.
Two years later, he became the only one-legged face-changing performer in the world in 2010. He was invited to tour Zhuhai, Hong Kong and many places in Canada for the reconstruction after the Wenchuan earthquake and Yushu earthquake. In 2013, he joined an agricultural company. At the same time as a part-time actor, he has a more stable job and income; in 2014, he also won the gold medal in the discus event at the Provincial Paralympic Games, realizing his dream of winning on the sports field.
During this period, he married a wife and got a daughter, and his career and life entered the "golden channel".
Summarizing the small successes of these 10 years, he said: "Perhaps diligence and hard work are the best way out, and these are just all my belongings."
After returning to the hometown for the benefit performance, I was with my alma mater.
Photo courtesy of Shu Fajun
In 2015, for the feelings of his homeland, he thanked his father and fellow villagers for helping him. He returned to his hometown and held a grateful performance, which brought another sharp turn in his life.
At that time, Rehe Township had begun to develop mango cultivation.
However, the main local laborers basically work outside, and the left-behind old people, children and women lack planting techniques and no export channels.
The villagers hope that he, a well-informed "celebrity" from his hometown, can help.
Looking at the ardent gazes of those aging uncles and aunts and sisters-in-law, and seeing everything familiar before him, he found that although he had been away from home for 15 years, this poor and beautiful land had never gone far in his memory.
In the early spring of 2016, he decided to return to Daliang Mountain.
Organize villagers to learn to build and pruning.
Photo courtesy of Shu Fajun
After half a lifetime, he is still a teenager
From leaving home at the age of 16 to returning home at the age of 32, Shu Fajun just ran away for half his life.
Although the return has been "unrecognizable", what remains unchanged is the hot young heart.
If the feelings of his homeland made him have a long-term concern for his hometown, the benefit performance caused him to turn his concern into action.
"Rehe has not kept up with the pace of development outside these years", he felt that something should be done.
Before returning home, he made full preparations.
He bought books and made up for mango planting techniques, went to Sichuan Province and surrounding cities to conduct inspections, went to Panzhihua mango base to learn from the experience and skills... After returning to his hometown, he set up a cooperative, confidently wanting to take the villagers out of poverty and get rich quickly.
Dividends will be distributed to poor households that have established files and registered cards.
Photo courtesy of Shu Fajun
Now, standing on a high place, he pointed to the winding Yalong River and the mountains covered with mist on both sides, and revealed to reporters another "ambition" of his time: "a stable job, a stage for performances." It's all too limited, look at how big the stage is here!"
At that time, the cotton village planted about 500 acres of mangoes.
Because of the mountains and rivers, it is impossible to form a patch, basically scattered, and the trees are short and thin, and there are weeds under the trees-the villagers follow the most primitive planting methods, "Let the nature and rely on the sky to eat", the yield and quality are fundamental Can't come up.
How to let the villagers learn to "standardize" management became the first problem he encountered.
Due to poor transportation and information, most of the local people are conservative in their thinking and lack of labor. The complicated procedures that require time, manpower, and patience, such as nursery, fertilization, weeding, grafting, pruning, and erection, have made the folks somewhat resistant.
Persuading them to expand the scale of planting is another thorny issue.
It takes at least 4-5 years for mangoes to grow from seedlings to fruit hanging. The cycle is long and the initial investment is high. What the villagers want is products with low cost and quick results.
He is well aware of the personality of Liangshan people, and even nine cows can't move anything he can't figure out.
Fortunately, he has honed his toughness and patience through years of turmoil. While taking villagers out for inspections and participating in various mango planting technology workshops in the county and town, he also wondered how to let the villagers quickly taste the sweetness and improve. Their enthusiasm.
In the early spring of 2017, when he went out to investigate, he found that the price of pumpkins was good.
The Liangshan pumpkin has good quality and low planting cost, which can make a profit in that year.
After returning to the village, he enthusiastically mobilized everyone to plant, and promised to buy it at a minimum of 5 hairs 1 jin.
Not expecting the bumper harvest of pumpkins in various places that year, the purchase price had dropped to about 3 hairs per catty when it went on the market in autumn, and more than 2 million catties of pumpkins in the village became "difficult melons".
The kind-hearted villagers expressed their willingness to sell at the market price, but he was unwilling to break his promise and insisted on buying at 50 cents.
"Fortunately, the county learned about this situation at that time, and the county's love purchase was initiated to relieve my urgent need." He said with a smile, "So my most'famous' in the county is selling pumpkins, not mangoes."
Mango trees are dotted on the slopes of the Yalong River.
Photo by Wang Zumin
"Difficult melon" basically lost the savings he brought back from Chengdu, but it won him "fame", credibility and reputation.
Coupled with more than a year of training and his tireless explanations, the villagers gradually recognized his ideas and began to operate in accordance with standardization. The planting area was also expanding day by day, but there was also a bottleneck in the sales and development of cooperatives.
At this time, he was recommended to participate in the "Leader Goose Project" training.
"When you urgently need a certain'knowledge point', the learning efficiency and acceptance of the learning content are the highest." He said, "The'Leading Goose' course teaches a new way of thinking and solutions to problems, so I suddenly Cheerful."
He used what he learned to supply the sales platform through the supply chain. Although the profit margin was small, he solved part of the mango sales.
He allowed 16 poor households in the village to join the cooperative unconditionally and become shareholders, using a small amount of profit to pay them dividends. Even so far, he himself is still a poor household.
Today, 131 farmers have joined the cooperative, and the mango planting area exceeds 2,000 mu. This year the cooperative purchased more than 1 million catties of mangoes.
Due to the impact of the epidemic, the price of mangoes dropped sharply, but the average mango sales of farmers in the cooperatives exceeded 10,000 yuan, and individual households with large planting areas even reached 100,000 yuan.
The "commercial store" of the cooperative is also his "office."
Photo by Wang Zumin
This is his hometown, the great Liangshan that he can't get out of
Following Shu Fajun's inspection of the scattered mango plantations, the reporter saw that all the trees had been erected, many villagers were busy in the field, and the few fruits waiting to be picked were all wrapped in white paper bags.
Shu Fajun said with satisfaction: “Mango production has come up, and the villagers have tasted the benefits of proper planting and management. Now there is no need to remind them. They know exactly what to do and how to do it when.”
Manual weeding and "use less pesticides and apply more farmyard manure" are his hard requirements for mango planting.
Bagging the fruit is also to prevent pests and reduce or even eliminate pesticides.
He said that Jehol mangoes have a long hanging time and high sugar content, and different varieties of Jehol mangoes generally mature from July to September. At this time, most of the same varieties of mangoes in other places are out of season, and Jehol mangoes have the advantage of time difference. , But "no matter how many advantages, we must guarantee quality as a prerequisite."
The patterns and words on this red T-shirt connect his past, present and future.
Photo by Wang Zumin
While visiting the village, the reporter also found that unlike some "left-behind villages" in poor mountainous areas, Mianhua Village is quite popular. Shu Fajun kept greeting people coming and going along the way. Most of them were young adults.
He told reporters that the benefits of mango planting are gradually showing, attracting many young adults back home.
Nowadays, every household basically has one or two strong laborers, and many other people who work outside the home will choose to come back to help during the mango harvest.
He hopes that Jehol mango will attract more people to return home, because these native "local forces" are the real "blood-making" for the countryside and the realization of rural revitalization.
Since 2016, he has returned to his hometown for nearly 5 years.
Speaking of his first "five-year plan", he thought for a while and said: "It's basically realized. Mango cultivation is gradually on the right track, and some labor force is returning; the cooperative operation mode is being improved and perfected in the process of exploration, members There are also small gains. But compared with the original idea, it is more regrettable."
His regret comes from the lack of talent.
Compared with other cities, the remote Liangshan, especially the countryside, cannot hold and recruit people, so far his cooperative has not had a decent team.
In addition to word of mouth buyers and his own "calling" in the circle of friends, without his own direct sales channels, it is even more difficult to implement his idea of building the Jehol mango brand.
In addition, the sharp drop in mango prices this year has also hit the villagers' enthusiasm for planting to a certain extent. Coupled with the financial constraints, it has also affected the large-scale development of mango cultivation.
These unfulfilled wishes have also become the goal of his second "five-year plan": to expand the scale of mango cultivation, optimize varieties, further improve quality, and create a brand that belongs to Jehol mango.
He also hopes to be more involved in rural revitalization and contribute to the construction and development of his hometown.
This year, he was awarded the title of Model Worker in Sichuan Province and became one of the top ten people who moved Liangshan.
"In fact, I am ashamed of these (honors), but I believe that one day the days in the Great Liangshan Mountain will be as beautiful as the scenery here." He said vowedly, as if he had made a promise.
Among the mountains and rivers of Rehe, his red T-shirt is very conspicuous.
The facial makeup on the back of the clothes represents his past. The pattern on the top left standing on the mountain with one-legged crutches is his present. On the top right, the three characters "Mangguaiguai" that combine his products and his personal "features" are The brand he will strive to build in the future.
On the way back, he saw the reporter taking photos while marveling at the beauty of the Yalong River and both sides of the strait. He proudly said: "This is my hometown, who wouldn't love it?!" (End)
He hopes that the days in Daliang Mountain are as beautiful as the scenery.
Photo by Wang Zumin