For most people, the seven-day National Day holiday is a best chance to see the world and enjoy a wonderful vocation. However, in the eyes of farmers, the holiday means nothing but a harvest time during which they could only “enjoy” toil and moil in the fields. Since I could remember, I have had a deep impression on this period. As I grew up, understandings and feelings of this holiday have changed.
My hometown is a village in Hebei Province. I knew what the autumn harvest before reform and opening-up was from my mother. She said although people needed to work hard in the autumn harvest, they were still filled with the joy of harvest in that age of material poverty. For example, after corns were harvested and shucked, my mother would collect a shallow basket of corns with big and plump kernels and separate kernels from cobs by an awl with my grandmother. Then, they used sun-dried kernels to process corn grits and cooked corn congees, corn cakes and corn balls with vegetables with these grits. Every year at that time, the aroma of corns floated from every family. My mother always said that the fresh ripe corns had special sweet aroma so that tastes of foods made of these corns were delicious. That might be the reason why all memories of my mother towards that time were not about sweat and toil but about tasty foods made of corn grits. Now, each time I go back home during the National Day holiday, my mother will still cook corn cakes and corn balls with vegetables for me and put the packed foods in my trunk, saying “More coarse food grains benefit”.
After reform and opening-up, people hardly starved with life standards gradually improving and I began to have my own memories about the autumn harvest. When I was a child, there was no the so called National Day Golden Week for tourists but was the Autumn Harvest Golden Week for farmers. In the busy time of the harvest, schools would be closed, so I waited at home for parents harvesting corns from fields. Due to the outdated technology, my parents could only harvest one tractor of corns after a long day and three or four days were needed to pick all corns. After this, my parents went to fields to bundle up corn stalks and pile them up, and waited their turn to use machines to plow the soil for planting wheat. Then, they ploughed wheat lands from ridges to pieces and watered them with machines at last. With low efficiency caused by fewer machines, we could not finish all farm work within one week. To shuck corns filling our yard, we had to work overtime. I remember in one autumn harvest when the hot series My Fair Princess were shown, my father moved the TV to the yard to not miss plots. The whole family, sitting under the dim light, each with a bench, watched TV, chatted and shucked corns. As I was a young boy at that time, I was not regarded as a labor. All my memories towards the autumn harvest were golden corns that filled the small yard. Sometimes I lay on the corn stack, looking up to the sky. Sometimes I played with children next door around the stack. Now, when I recall the autumn harvest at that time, scenes of golden corns and time of happy childhood come to my mind.
In new century, agricultural machines were generally used among which returning straw to field by use of stalk crushers impressed me the most. This not only saved us the time of piling up stalks, but also fertilized the soil. With more and more tilling and seeding machines, my father did not need to wait overnight and take turns to use machines. There were also corn harvesters, but they were more expensive. For farmers who always weighed the costs and benefits, harvesting corns by themselves was a better choice. My parents were typical farmers careful with their money. As I grew to a strong man, my memories about the autumn harvest turned to tiring and painful work. With corn crushers, we directly went into the corn fields to harvest corns instead of first laying down stalks as before. It was still hot in October if the sun was shining. Therefore, when we walked through corn fields under the sun, wearing thick coats to prevent ourselves from being scratched by corn leaves, we often hardly breathed. However, at the end of a day, our necks and faces were still scratched. After harvesting, we had to shuck, dry and store these corns and waited to sell them at a high price. It was at that time that I began to have a resistance to the “Golden Week” and hope to stay at school for fearing the farm work. My mother taught me “Study hard, or you will do farm work in the rest of your life”. Escaping farm work became an important reason why I kept studying hard.
With the deepening of reform and opening-up and effective implementations of various preferential policies for farmers, great changes have taken place in the autumn harvest in villages. Now, there are machines integrated with functions of harvesting, shucking and crushing. Corns are directly taken to farmers’ home by tractors, which doesn’t cost too much. There are some large farms and two feed mills around my village, which buy corns from villagers in the autumn harvest. Farmers sell corns and stalks to them at a reasonable price without collecting to home. After having a job, I come back home to visit my parents and help them do farm work during each National Day holiday, but there is less farm work. This year, my mother kept some fresh corns to cook corn cakes and balls for me and sold the rest to farms. Harvesting and selling became simpler and the wheat was planted very early. When I accompanied my mother to water the fields, I saw the open sky, the vast land, the neatly fields, and the fertile soil irrigated by canal water. As the sun shined and winds blew slightly, my mother and I sat on the ground, enjoying the pastoral scene and remembering the past. My mother said to me “How fast our society develops! We feel less tired in the autumn harvest. People have finished harvesting corns and planting wheat in such a short period.” And I agreed “As our country pays more attention to Three Rural Issues, more profound changes will happen.”
In the 40 years since China began its reform and opening-up, farmers’ “National Day Golden Week” has been largely influenced by the continuous progress in society and science and technology. Increasingly advanced machines have changed the way of harvesting. However, the gratefulness of farmers towards the land, the joy of the harvest, and the sense of benefits and happiness gained from the land remain unchanged.
