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Photos: Expat Writer Documents Life in a Chinese Village Called Wasteland

February 5th, 2015
The village of Wasteland, in northeastern China. (Michael Meyer)
Contracted Eastern Fortune Rice workers at harvest against a backdrop of apartment construction. (Michael Meyer)
An Eastern Fortune Rice billboard promises to "Develop New Agriculture, Build a New Countryside, Enrich the New Farmer." (Michael Meyer)
Hired laborers contracted by Eastern Fortune Rice harvest crops by machine. Rice culled in this manner must be processed and packaged quickly to avoid turning rancid, unlike hand-cut rice, which can remain on the stalk until demand (and the price) rises. (Michael Meyer)
Some farmers still dry rice in the traditional manner on a road, rather than with machines. (Michael Meyer)
Workers widen Wasteland’s main drive, Red Flag Road, by hand. (Michael Meyer)
A local named Auntie Yi stands on the improved Red Flag Road, which now features solar-powered streetlights and Wasteland's first "lawn" — a strip of ornamental sod. (Michael Meyer)
One of Wasteland's last remaining straw-and-mud houses, now used as a storage shed behind a modern home. (Michael Meyer)
The home where Meyer stayed during his time in Wasteland. (Michael Meyer)
A high-speed train whooshes past Wasteland beneath a new railway overpass, which is now the town's tallest structure. (Michael Meyer)
Eastern Fortune Rice's development involves obtaining land rights from farmers and moving them into apartment complexes. While younger villagers are eager to move into the new apartments, older residents worry about climbing stairs, and losing their current homes' gardens and chicken coops, which augment their income (and pantries). (Michael Meyer)
Hand-harvested rice is stacked in autumn. (Michael Meyer)
Dried rice straw that will be used to fuel this home’s kang (heated brick bed) through the winter. (Michael Meyer)
Wasteland's elementary students at recess in deep winter. The three-story school in the background was the tallest structure in Wasteland until the railway overpass was built. (Michael Meyer)
A pedicab driver braves the cold on Red Flag Road. (Michael Meyer)
Cranes over the new apartments. (Michael Meyer)
The village in winter, as seen from the new high-speed rail overpass. (Michael Meyer)
Enlarge Hide captions

For three years, writer Michael Meyer rented a home in a village in northeastern China known as Wasteland. The small rice-farming community — once a commune, during the Mao Zedong-era — was undergoing profound changes. Mud homes were giving way to apartment complexes and primitive individual farms were being phased out in favor of corporate agriculture. In an arrangement that's become common throughout rural China, a private company called Eastern Fortune Rice largely took charge of the development.

Today, there are thousands of villages like Wasteland undergoing transitions that push (often reluctant) locals from tradition to modernity. In his new book In Manchuria: A Village Called Wasteland and the Transformation of Rural China, Meyer documents his time in the changing countryside and how Manchuria’s past helps make sense of its present. Ahead of his February 18 discussion on Manchuria and rural China with Ian Buruma at Asia Society New York, Meyer shared some photos from his time in Wasteland.

Meyer's February 18 author talk is a co-presentation between the New York Review of Books and ChinaFile, the online magazine of Asia Society's Center on U.S.-China Relations. An excerpt from Meyer's book is available on ChinaFile.

Related Links

  • Michael Meyer and Ian Buruma at Asia Society New York
  • 2/18/15
china
michael meyer
rural china
current affairs
asia society new york
manchuria
chinafile presents
east asia
asiablog

About the Author

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Eric Fish was a Content Producer at Asia Society New York and is author of the book China's Millennials: The Want Generation.

 @ericfish85
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