Moved from Sanlitun to Peking University and resigned to become a "peasant woman"
We want to "sell" time on the farm
Wang Jing
Age: 36 years old
Occupation: One of the founders and head of operations of Flying Bird and Song Worm Farm
her story
Moved from Sanlitun to the suburbs of Beijing and became a "peasant woman".
She said that she is walking on the road to realize her dream, the process is difficult but happy.
In Jinboluo Village, Miyun District, a wooden fence dotted with "seven-star ladybugs" is very eye-catching. Here is "Flying Birds and Song Bugs" - a new ecological farm that has been built for three years.
Wang Jing, a graduate of Peking University, is one of the founders of this farm.
Ten years ago, she was a graduate student in the law department of Peking University, and she worked as a project manager of food safety in an international organization for the next eight years.
After that, she quit her job and "jumped" from Sanlitun to the suburbs of Beijing, becoming a "peasant woman", a "cook" and a "village baker".
Wang Jing said, "Compared with the cities, the social roles of the countryside are very diverse."
"Chunxuan and flourishing"
Farm design follows nature
In the deep winter, Jinboluo Village is desolate and quiet. In the yard of birds and chirping insects, the animals that can be seen everywhere have become the biggest vitality in the winter farm.
Every chicken and sheep here has its own name, and the breed, gender, date of birth and constellation are also recorded.
Some names are often unforgettable to those who have been to the farm, such as "Vanilla" is a Boer goat, born on February 14, 2020, Aquarius; "Black Coffee" is a firewood chicken, a 2-year-old "girl" ", Aries.
Wang Jing knew exactly the origin of each animal's name, how it was born, which one was given by the village head, and who and who were brothers.
From the beginning of the design of the farm, Wang Jing and other founders participated in the whole process.
Today, when introducing this farm to outsiders, Wang Jing is more like an extremely professional farm commentator than a traditional "farmer", with clear organization and extraordinary eloquence.
She can share the design details and ecological concepts of every inch of land and every corner of the farm, and she is willing to tell the story behind it:
"This place used to be a farmhouse. We hired the 'Land Poet' to do the design. Why is he called the Land Poet? Because the designer will surround the whole village to see the state of every tree and every inch of land. Like the taller one here It is a toon tree, and below it is Hemerocallis, also called yellow flower. It is perennial and will be very lush in spring, summer and autumn. Together with the toon tree, it is 'Chunxuan and prosperous', which means the well-being of parents; there is an apricot tree, which corresponds to Confucius apricot. The altar, the peach and plum trees planted on the edge, will carry out farm teaching here every time, corresponding to 'the peaches and plums do not speak, the footsteps are formed'..."
Coinciding with the concept of "land poets", in Wang Jing's view, every tree on the farm is a poem, even the mediocre greenhouses.
For her, the farm's greenhouse is "a planet about spring in the winter universe."
Wang Jing said that when they built this farm, what they really wanted to "sell" was not agricultural products, but "time" on the farm.
How to "sell" time?
For example, Wang Jing said, "There is a child of a farm co-builder who has been on the farm since he was three years old. He is very familiar with this place and introduced to his friends, 'This lamb's sheepfold is made of bricks made of clay. How was the sheep called vanilla born...' This kind of sharing has a sense of process, it is the experience of children participating in the construction of the farm, and it is this time that is shared."
Not only that, but even the way to enter the farm gate is selling "time".
"The first way to enter the farm is to retrieve childhood memories, to enter the sand pit in the form of slides, and then another way is to climb these logs to enter, and the last way is to walk the slides in the most orderly manner." Wang Jing said.
"Crazy" craftsman
Study bread with the spirit of "Scholarly Master"
"We invite children and adults to join us, follow the rhythm of heaven and earth, feel the nature, touch the soil, and experience sowing, germination, planting, and harvesting with our own hands. In the 'Flying Birds and Song Bugs' farm, we not only leave childhood warm memories for children Memories, but also for every adult, embrace the child in your heart and return to the way life should be."
Wang Jing and three other girls founded the farm together. Everyone in the team has their own role. Wang Jing's self-position is very interesting: the "cook" in the team - the goddess of bread (jing), the outsider. No. "P Orange".
As a scholar who is keen on making bread, when talking about bread, Wang Jing's eyes are always shining.
Another founder, Li Fang, and Wang Jing both worked for the same international environmental protection agency.
Li Yifang said that a few years ago, she handed over an idle oven to Wang Jing, and since then "this good-looking girl has embarked on the road of no return for the baking goddess (jing)" - working during the day and often "rubbing bags" In the middle of the night, I have to bring a bottle of natural yeast to a meeting in Shanghai.
Li Yifang said that that morning, P Cheng and I were sitting on the high-speed train from Beijing to Shanghai.
She took a delicate jar from her bag and placed it carefully on the small table in front of her seat.
"What is this?" I asked.
"My yeast, I can't leave it at home. After so many days on business, it will die." P Orange said.
"Can the yeast die?"
"Of course, I need to feed them every few hours or they'll die."
Whenever the work pressure is high, Wang Jing will say, "I have to go home and rub a bag."
As for any hobby, she has to delve into the extreme, and the same is true for making bread.
There is a Roman-style wood-fired bread kiln on the farm, and only the chimney plan has been changed ten times. Wang Jing goes to the bakery kiln on the construction site every day to make a fire; in the midsummer of August, Wang Jing slept on the floor of the farm storage room for less than 5 years. Hours, during which I got up and checked the re-fermented dough every 2 hours... Not only did I study "kneading the bag", but I even studied the wheat myself, studied the variety of wheat and its protection on the soil, started planting, watering, Harvest, grind, and fail again and again.
Failure is nothing, in Wang Jing's view, this process is like an audio-optical stereo education about wheat, "This process itself is very meaningful to me.
In a place like this, we spend so much time and energy planting wheat, and some people around don’t understand it, but as diet writer Michael Pollan said, why we always go back to the roots is because of ourselves Hands-on, it always feels like a small step, even a small one, toward self-reliance and omnipotence.
"Today, Wang Jing has developed more than 40 kinds of natural yeast bread, and the sales of bread have also hit new highs.
"Dream" test
The pace of the farm is no slower than that of the workplace
The floor of the farm's bathroom was planed open again, and after various tricks to dredge, the sewers were still blocked; the soil area had not progressed for more than a week; when it rained heavily, the farm's house leaked like a water curtain...
Creating a new eco-farm from scratch is not easy.
For Wang Jing, who has never lived in the countryside since she was a child, it is even more difficult.
"To wash rice, wash vegetables, hatch chickens and geese, since I started a farm, when I stretch out a rough hand, others will show distressed expressions." Wang Jing said that her work as a baker and opening an ecological farm is a "dream shining in." reality" thing.
Seven years ago, when she took natural yeast on a business trip to Shanghai, she called out in her heart, "I want to bake bread in a kiln, to make bread with soul, and to be a baker who grows wheat by himself."
Now, these wishes have really come true little by little.
In Wang Jing's mobile phone notepad, a very detailed schedule is listed every day. One weekend, the schedule is as follows: 1. Shoot 18 kinds of bread, 9 kinds of a combination; 2. From 9:00 to 10:00, go to the greenhouse to catch insects ; Bazaar Bread Arrangement; 3. Reissue Betty with Chocolate, Garland and Peanut Butter; 4. Bread Box to Vendor, address to Dove; For these trivial tasks, Wang Jing is also responsible for the daily overall operation of the farm, bread production, activity formulation and so on.
Would such rural life be easier than working life?
Wang Jing said frankly that the pace and busyness of work on the farm is no slower than that in the workplace.
"Coming to the countryside is a retirement or recluse for some people, but it is a test of thought and action for others," Wang Jing said, "Both of me and one party used to work in environmental protection agencies and work on food safety projects. It’s vulgar to say this, but we still have the desire to make the world a better place. In the past, during the day, I went to advocate the promotion of environmental protection and food safety to the business people, and at night, I baked bread and made delicious food. I'm still living this way ten years later, but wanting to make it known to more people that it's possible."
In addition to fulfilling her own dreams, Wang Jing said that she also wanted to bring benefits to more people: "We have a responsibility to this village. When we think about the survival and development of the farm, we do not simply consider it from the perspective of our own business, but The relationship with this village and the relationship with the employees. We are wondering whether there will be more people in this village in ten years, who can indirectly or directly witness such a healthy and natural way of life, through such an experience design, from which benefit."
A classmate of Peking University's law department commented on Wang Jing: "You let your younger brothers and sisters see another possibility of Peking University's law department." For Wang Jing, she has a further ambition - to build a park Ecological farms, creating a food forest, so that more people can gain strength and sense of value from nature, "Pumen is a sustainable way of life, and its core is to learn from nature its diversity and mutual to see how nature works for human use, to respect nature and respect others.”
The voice of the "peasant woman"
Bring more possibilities to rural life
Beiqing Daily: Have you adapted to rural life?
Wang Jing: I've gotten used to it now.
In the first year, I was really not used to it. I really wanted to order takeout and eat salads, but now I feel that I can do anything. It is too easy to make salads. I can pick whatever I want in the greenhouse, and I feel very happy.
Beiqing Daily: Have you encountered difficulties in turning your ideal into a career?
Wang Jing: In 2018, after we signed a contract with the village, when we entered the design stage, we wanted to do something for the village, so we hosted the first Farmers' Festival and Village Carnival.
At that time, we contacted all the resources and contacts we could reach, working as a hand-made mooncake stall, contacting ticket sales, security, coordinating local camping, stall owners, etc. We were busy as soon as we opened our eyes, until eleven or twelve o'clock in the evening. Broken down, I just turned 33 at the time and I was thinking do I really want this?
I actually have other opportunities to do the work I used to be more comfortable with.
So I told others to quit, the road was too hard, I couldn't take it.
During that time, I started to look through my circle of friends. What could make me happy?
In the end, I found out that the answer was bread, the bread was baked, and others shared it, which made me feel very happy, so I began to challenge the "hundred-day-hundred-pack", making one type of bread every day, and then writing it down. This process is very healing.
In the end choose to make yourself a passionate ideal, or a decent career?
I think it's cooler to let an ideal slowly turn into a decent career than to accept any ready-made career.
Beiqing Daily: What do you think "new farmers" can bring to rural revitalization?
Wang Jing: What we want to bring is actually a new trend of thought. Whether it is to find a farm co-constructor or to make products, it is actually to re-create the possibility of rural life and improve the value of the village.
This edition of the article / our reporter Lin Yan