Lives of Grinding Poverty, Untouched by China’s Boom

The New York Times ^ | January 13, 2008 | By Howard W. French

[JACKRUSSELL]

(YANGMIAO, China) — When she gets sick, Li Enlan, 78, picks herbs from the woods that grow nearby instead of buying modern medicines. That is not a result of some philosophical choice, though. She has never seen a doctor and, like many residents of this area, lives in a meager barter economy, seldom coming into contact with cash.

“We eat somehow, but it’s never enough,” Ms. Li said. “At least we’re not starving.”

In this region of southern Henan Province, in village after village, people are too poor to heat their homes in the winter and many lack basic comforts like running water. Mobile phones, a near ubiquitous symbol of upward mobility throughout much of this country, are seen as an impossible luxury. People here often begin conversations with a phrase that is still not uncommon in today’s China: “We are poor.”

China has moved more people out of poverty than any other country in recent decades, but the persistence of destitution in places like southern Henan Province fits with the findings of a recent World Bank study that suggests that there are still 300 million poor in China — three times as many as the bank previously estimated.

Poverty is most severe in China’s geographic and social margins, whether the mountainous areas or deserts that ring the country, or areas dominated by ethnic minorities, who for cultural and historic reasons have benefited far less than others from the country’s long economic rise.

But it also persists in places like Henan, where population densities are among the greatest in China, and the new wealth of the booming coast beckons, almost mockingly, a mere province away.

“Henan has the largest population of any province, approaching 100 million people, and the land there just cannot support those kinds of numbers,”......

[JACKRUSSELL]

Li Enlan at her home in Yangmiao, a village in Henan Province in China. “We eat somehow, but it’s never enough,” she said. (Ariana Lindquist for The New York Times)

Poor families in villages like Zhangyoufang still struggle to pay the school fees for their children. (Ariana Lindquist for The New York Times)

Shen Kexia and her husband had to leave their village in Henan Province to find jobs in Hangzhou, a southern coastal city. (Ariana Lindquist for The New York Times)

[JACKRUSSELL]

(Please FReepmail me if you would like to be on or off of the list.)

[edcoil]

Communist country....................... what did you expect.

[metmom]

Here’s some people who really know what it’s like to be poor.

“Poverty” in the United States is a joke.

[webschooner]

The Chinese in grinding poverty in rural areas are fleeing to the cities to join the economic boom there and improve their lives.

[beaversmom]

Obviously there are two Chinas. Send them John Edwards after he loses again.

[Zhang Fei]

Shen Kexia, 33, who left her village with her husband for work in Hangzhou, a booming southern coastal city, recently returned home for the birth of her second daughter.

It's clear that the one-child policy isn't universally enforced.

[Mojohemi]

Shen Kexia, 33, who left her village with her husband for work in Hangzhou, a booming southern coastal city, recently returned home for the birth of her second daughter.
It’s clear that the one-child policy isn’t universally enforced.

Poverty never stopped people from having children they can not feed. Maybe it is intended to be like that for a reason. Only God knows!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

"Hi, Everybody! Liz and I can fit about half of you poor Chinese into one wing of our new house, so come on over!" *SMIRK*

[Zhang Fei]

Feeding is probably not an issue in the modern world, especially in a post-Haber process world.