China in the eyes of an Australian: "The more you understand China, the more you like her"
When I first saw Jerry Grey, he was walking quickly from a typical Chinese alley.
He is of medium build and walks like wind, making it hard to tell that he is over 60 years old.
Along the way, Jerry greeted the neighbors in the neighborhood in Chinese as he walked.
Jerry has lived in China for 16 years. He was born in north-central England, worked as a policeman in London for ten years, and immigrated to Australia when he was 28.
Because he likes to experience life in different places, in 2004, he came to Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province because of an English teacher recruitment advertisement.
Photo by Sun Qiuxia at Jerry Grey's home in Zhongshan
"Before coming to China, I heard that China is an underdeveloped place, and some daily necessities are difficult to buy. When I first came to China, I packed two large bottles of shampoo and a pile of soap in my suitcase, and later found that this was completely unnecessary. , Chinese supermarkets have all the things I brought, and they are cheaper and of good quality, which is completely beyond my expectations.” Jerry said.
Jerry admitted that when he first came to China, he did not adapt to the life here. Due to the language barrier, he could not communicate with people outside the school.
Later, Jerry met his current Chinese wife Liang Yuhua, and with her help, he gradually settled down.
Photo courtesy of interviewees Jerry Grey and his wife Liang Yuhua
Having lived in Zhongshan for many years, Jerry's roots have taken root here.
He said that at the beginning, he only planned to stay in China for about a year, but he didn't expect it to be 16 years later. "The more you understand China, the more you like her."
Jerry, who loves to visit China's great rivers and mountains, has been to many places.
Especially in the past few years, he has ridden China three times, from south to north, from north to south, passing through more than 20 cities including Xiamen, Fuzhou, Changsha, Wuhan and Chongqing.
Photo courtesy of interviewees of Jerry Grey riding in 2014
During the journey, Jerry witnessed the earth-shaking changes taking place in this land of China from the eyes of an Australian.
From Urumqi to Zhongshan
Seeing the great changes in China in just a few years
Jerry has long heard of China's poverty alleviation plan, but he has only occasionally read some reports in newspapers or on the Internet, which is unfamiliar and distant to him.
It was last year that he really started to feel personally about poverty alleviation.
In 2019, Jerry and his wife came to Xinjiang in northwestern China. They rode all the way back to Zhongshan from Urumqi. The journey was about 5,000 kilometers. The journey took nearly two months.
Jerry and his entourage prepare to leave Urumqi for the interviewee
Five years ago, Jerry once cycled along the same route.
It was 2014. He and another friend rode from Zhongshan to Urumqi, and then returned the same way.
When they passed through some poverty-stricken areas in Gansu and Ningxia, they saw potholes in the roads, few private cars on the roads, and poor conditions in the hotels along the way. People could be seen living in cave dwellings along the road.
Photo courtesy of respondents from Gansu cave dwellings
Cycling again in 2019, on the same route, he discovered the great changes in China.
"Last year, when we passed through Ningxia again, great changes have taken place in the formerly impoverished areas. The cave dwellings along the road are still there, but no one lives. Schools, movie theaters, shopping centers, restaurants and hotels have been built in the area. , The road was also renovated. In just five years, Ningxia gave people a completely different feeling." Jerry said.
Comparing a street in Ningxia in 2014 and 2019
It's not just new roads and new houses. In Jerry's view, the most important thing is that the government has introduced these poor areas into the market. This is achieved by building railways.
He experienced the common saying "If you want to be rich, you must first build a road."
"I see that some small towns now have railways. Locals can use trains to transport goods to other parts of China, and even around the world. People can take trains to wherever they want to go. Railways also bring more to the western region. Tourists, more industries and more funds." Jerry said.
The original cave dwellings in Ningxia have become what they are now.
A few days ago, Jerry ordered some Xinjiang jujubes from the Internet. In about two days, the jujubes picked from the Xinjiang farm in western China were delivered to Zhongshan, Guangdong in eastern China.
Although he is used to online shopping, the logistics speed of China Express still surprised him.
The changes taking place in western China are a microcosm of "the fight against poverty."
In Guangdong and Guangxi, Jerry also saw the same changes.
In 2006, in order to help some poor families, Jerry and his wife came to a village in Guangxi.
The road in the village was rugged and uneven, and they had to get off the car 8 kilometers away from the village and walk to the village on foot.
Along the way, he saw local people rely on donkeys to transport goods to the store.
Ten years later, the donkey was gone, replaced by trucks.
"If you look at the photos of some places in China in the past, they often look very shabby. If you go to those places now, you will find that they have been completely new. This is the speed of China, and the development here is too fast. Even Zhongshan, where I live, It's very different from when I first came." Jerry said.
Rich cities help poor cities
"This is a good way"
There is an old Chinese proverb, "It is better to teach people how to fish than to teach people how to fish."
Jerry said that there is a similar proverb in the West, "If you give a man a fish, you feed it for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for life."
In Jerry's view, this is what the Chinese government is doing in poverty alleviation, not only to provide funds to poor areas, but also to provide local people with corresponding resources and skills.
Jerry and his wife took a group photo in Xinjiang
"I like the Chinese system very much. A rich city helps a poor city. This may be socialism. I see that they not only provide funds to each other, but also provide them with education, build factories, and allow locals to develop from industry. Benefit from it," Jerry said.
For example, the wines of Ningxia left a deep impression on Jerry.
While cycling through Ningxia, he saw local farmers planting grapes to make wine and forming a wine industry. Some regions also hire foreign wine experts to help.
"There is an Australian in the winery in Ningxia. He is a wine expert. China invited him to help local people make wine." Jerry believes that this is the best way for people to use local resources to get rid of poverty.
Photo courtesy of interviewees in Ningxia streets in 2014 and 2019
In the past few years, Jerry and his wife have been helping some poor families in Heyuan and Shaoguan, Guangdong. They have also witnessed the development and changes in these two areas.
They saw Chinese entrepreneurs building factories locally, hiring locals to work, and then selling their products to other places; the local government gave each family 100 chickens, and these chickens were raised and sold.
Photo courtesy of a shepherd interviewee in Wuwei, Gansu
"In the past, my wife and I would give these poor families red envelopes every year during the holidays, so that their children could buy textbooks, school uniforms and other things. But now red envelopes are becoming less and less necessary. Those families have become wealthy, and some The family also built a building." Jerry said.
Witnessing the tremendous changes in China, Jerry believes that “without the Chinese government’s poverty alleviation policy, this would not have happened, because it must be deployed nationwide”.
Author: Sunqiu Xia