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National Geographic : 1980 Mar
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It is a grid of barrack-style housing and fields, mainly of melons, cotton, and grain. It has about 17,000 settlers, who are divided into companies and then into production brigades. There is a restrained atmosphere about State Farm 150. Only here have the children beenshyofus. WhenIask agroupofmenif ten years ago they thought they'd ever see an American here, they laugh and shake their heads. When I interview young women in a melon field, a foreman monitors. Wang Xinhua, 19, says she was sent here two years ago from the closest city, Shihezi, "to learn from the peasants." China's policy is to rus ticate many of its young people, or send them away from the overcrowded cities where there are job shortages. However, as a birth-control incentive, the Chinese exempt from rustication children from fam ilies with only one child. Especially good students are sometimes exempt as well. Wang does not expect to leave State Farm 150 anytime soon. "If the state asks me to go, I will of course. But I like it here." Do they ever have dances? Wang giggles no. "We play basketball and Ping-Pong and engage in cultural activities. We have politi cal meetings once a week." Are they fun? She looks at her foreman and decides not to answer directly. "We study documents of the party and read its newspapers." Somehow we find ourselves alone with several original settlers of State Farm 150. "We were all volunteers back then," says Wei Guoan. "We were young and enthusias tic about defending and developing the bor der. It was an exciting time. Nobody was out here but the foxes and the yellow goats. The work was difficult. We had little machinery to help." "We had no housing," adds He Yunqi. "We dug pits and covered them with twigs and mud. Five or six people lived in each. Most were single. Families came later." Do the Russians ever try to cross over and steal your melons? Laughter. "They wouldn't dare." Often the Chinese seem embarrassed by the backward state of their agriculture. Near Jiayuguan they did not want us to pho tograph a farmer plowing behind an ox, a common sight across China (page 304). On Farm 150 they are intensely proud of their tractors, which they work day and night. Returning to Urfimqi, we pass about thir ty farm workers. "I think one tractor could do better than all those people," says scien tist Liang Kuangyi. "But then what would all those people do?" I ask. Liang ponders a moment. "Quite right," he says. N THE MOUNTAINS and high pastures around Urfimqi we meet a third Xinjiang life-style, that of the pastoral Kazak people. On the way our minibus breaks down once more. So far in Xinjiang we have had three flat tires, a broken distributor, a rup tured brake cylinder, a dead battery, two broken fan belts, and a sparking short cir cuit under the dashboard. Yet the Chinese driver-mechanics are a wonder. No prob lem throws them for long. They carry a ready supply of tools and parts. This time the water pump is broken. They pull it out and proceed to make from scrap metal the part they need to fix it. "In the U. S.," notes car buff Jack Johnson, "a mechanic would insist on putting in a whole new pump." We resume our climb into the Tian Shan, and the air grows cool. We pass rapids with torrents of white water racing down steep canyons. Cottonwoods and spruce appear, as do yurts, the domed, tentlike homes of the Kazaks. Cowboys on horseback, wearing green Mao caps and bearing rifles to protect against predators, drive cattle to pasture. Wolves are a problem here; snow leopards are the second most worrisome species, we are told. When we reach Celestial Lake, a reser voir of pristine snowmelt from the surround ing peaks, we meet a young mountaineering team from Beijing. They wear elaborate climbing gear, and one carries a $2,000 Ger man camera, the strongest indication we have seen yet that, along with its masses, China still has its favored citizens. After a two-hour hike, Bob, Jeff, and I While men are away in the high country, a Kazak mother stays with her children (overleaf) in a lower camp. Minoritiesmay raise largefamilies, but Han Chinese are penalized for having more than two children. Journey to China'sFar West 327
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