The Official like a “Flying Pigeon”

The first official that came to our mind was Zhang Shangfu.

When we first met Zhang Shangfu, he was making a fire to heat the brick bed and warm the room that got very cold since he had been away for days to stay in Taiyuan. He lived in a low-rise tile-roofed roadside house that had been abandoned by the villagers long ago. It's a dilapidated house with a dented roof, cracked walls and a foundation lower than the road. This is not the biggest concern, however, since it's supported by wooden frames and he would not be crushed even if the house collapsed. The major concern is that it's too close to the road, since he may lose his life in case a car hit the house due to fatigue driving.

Zhang Shangfu was dressed in an old military uniform, with a white towel around his neck and a black streak on his face that he got from making the fire. With an infectious smile, he told us that there is plenty of living space in the village, but he lived there for the convenience of raising pigs, since it's close to the pig farm.

He led us to the pig farm. The impoverished villagers were hired to prepare the feed for pigs there. Mr. Zhang asked loudly, “Did it give birth?”“Yes! But the sow is defending her piglets. If we get closer, the sow bites us,” said the workers in the farm.

Mr. Zhang almost screamed out of joy. He laughed and walked quickly to the pigpen where a medium-sized pig ran towards him. He said with great joy and pride that, “Look at him! How strong and shiny!”

We later learned that he spend half a year applying for the assistance from his employer, Xinzhou Housing Provident Fund Management Center, to set up a pig farm.

While we were looking around outside, Kehai has been in an animated conversation with Mr. Zhang. Covering an area of less than 10 m ² , the room was stuffed with poverty-alleviating materials, the newspaper covering the bedding collected a layer of coal ash, and the room was choked with soot. Kehai advised him to be on alert for the sake of safety. He replied that after years of logistic work, he knew it well that everything would be fine if you pour water on the ground and then put a basin of water there after making a fire.

Mr. Zhang continued, “It's not a big deal. Many people cannot bear the smell in the house. The rooms of bachelors smell like bachelors, but apart from the smell of a bachelor, my room also smells of pig manure. Yes, that's what you smelled. Since the room had been abandoned for years, I found a snake on the floor one morning and later found a snake pit beneath the pile of stones nearby. Instead of killing it, I sent it away with a spade.”

Hung on the wall was a stack of half-month work plans dated from April 2015 to 2018 together with inspirational sentences from his own work The Hardships of the Anti-poverty Fighters. Next to a mirror on the wall opposed to the brick bed, Zhang Shangfu wrote some sentences that mean “the goal goes beyond lifting individuals out of poverty, but is to lift the whole village out of poverty,” “you're nobody in front of villagers and leaders, but still, you must carry on despite the family members' complaints and various hardships” and others. These words are obviously for self-motivation when he's depressed.

Then, we followed him to the village and everyone on the way said “hi”to him. He went home the day after the Spring Festival and came back just three days later. The villagers are all familiar with him, and even a puppy ran out to him intimately. He's like a family member to the villagers.

He showed us around the village that's clean and tidy. He greeted everyone we met. When we entered the yard of a villager, the black pig that was adopted from the cooperative ran to him, wagging its tail and lightly rubbing him. For his part, Mr. Zhang patted the pig on the head while talking about the pork price with the villager in a happy and serious manner, as if they were talking about something huge.

He then showed us the place where he's planning for the costume processing training program. Since it's still during the Spring Festival holiday, no one was there, except for a dozen of sewing machines immersed in the sunlight in the classroom. He told us the training program will officially open in March. When we returned to his shabby roadside house, Kehai accidently found the work dairy of Zhang.

Keeping a work diary was an essential part of the work for officials posted to villages. The diaries were distributed by the county department, with a unified name “Diary of the People's Conditions.” The diary is kept for two purposes. For one thing, it helps village officials know better about the conditions of the village and the villagers. For another, it could be used for the work performance evaluation. While Kehai was reading the work diary, Mr. Zhang told him that it's the diary of 2016. When the inspection team comes to the village, they will check the work diary to know about the work. Since the dairy for 2016 had been checked by the inspection team, we were allowed to borrow it for some time.

That's our first meeting with Zhang Shangfu. He's a simple, honest and lovely man with a different working style from other first Party chiefs. But how and why he's different? We didn't think too much about it at the time, as we were in a hurry to go to the next stop: Pianguan County.

In the Pianguan County, we interviewed the deputy county chief Ren Qingquan. When we mentioned the poverty alleviation work led by Zhang Shangfu in the Ningwu County, Ren told us that they were comrades-in-arms and Zhang was one of the three role models in learning from Lei Feng.

Zhang Shangfu is a great man.

When we returned to Taiyuan, Kehai began to read Zhang's work diary. He said it was like reading a wonderful historical book and he's unable to stop reading. Afterwards, Kehai wrote an article to introduce The First Party Chief's Diary of the People's Conditions .

Kehai said that Zhang Shangfu did a great of practical work for the village. He worked ceaselessly and tirelessly.

For instance, during the busy farming season lasting from May to July in 2015, he set up the CPC village committee and the villagers' committee between farm work. In August, he led the members of the two committees to attend the 2nd China Potato Farmers Conference in Inner Mongolia. In September, he led them to Yuanping for a conference on the joint marketing of Liuguo chemicals in northern Shanxi Province and the observation of corn fields. When it's getting extremely cold in October and November, many elders in the village had to go to the hospital. He served as their driver and helped them apply for the social security card, among other things. It's common for him to drive the kids to schools in the city. He also managed to take time from his busy schedule to make a plan for the establishment of a pig farm. By December, he organized to dig a well in preparation for the construction of the pig farm. After a week of continuous work, they went as deep as 80 meters and finally got water. Then, he began to raise money for the farm.

In the summer of 2016, he bought 100 black piglets. He got up before dawn to collect green feed and corn stalks for pigs. In the dialect of northwestern Shanxi, the piglet was dubbed “pig son” literally. Its pronunciation in the dialect was full of love. Then, he bought an electric pickup at his own expense of RMB30,000 to deliver the green feeds for pigs or help the families in need. When he went to cities for business, he would ask for a bucket of swill from restaurants to feed the two dogs in the pig farm.

After finishing the article to introduce his work diary, it was handed out to his colleagues in the editorial department and they thought that it's a great documentary work. Zhang Shangfu's work diary from May 2015 to the end of 2016 was condensed into an article of about 20,000 characters. His diary kept a detailed record of his daily work in a simple and objective manner. The condensed article by Kehai depicted an ordinary village official dedicated to poverty alleviation with documentary scenes of him at work that are vivid and true to life.

The editorial department decided to publish it in the magazine Shanxi Literature .

It received enthusiastic response from readers. After it was posted on the official WeChat account, we got over 500 hits in two days and positive comments from readers. We forwarded it to Mr. Zhang who said with great joy, “It's unimaginable!”

A great many people were touched by the diary.