Traveling a thousand miles: do service for people
In 1983, Xi, then the Zheng Ding County Party Secretary of Hebei Province, was listening to people’s opinions.
Xi tempered himself through practice in many places. During several decades, Xi has traveled through thousands of miles and did every effort to serve to local people.
In 1969, 16-year-old Xi went to live and work in a production team of Liang Jiahe village in Yan’an city. He spent 7 years in learning there. After having become the village secretary, he led villagers to the road of getting rid of poverty. Under the guidance of Xi, the villagers built four dams, dug wells, built biogas plants, and even set up mills, tailor shops, iron industries and commission agents.since then, villages can not only afford their living but also improve their living standard. After getting along with Xi for 7 years, villagers of Liang Jiahe showed great affection towards him. Before setting off to Tsinghua University for learning,all villagers were unwilling to say goodbye to him and wrote several sentences in his notebook to express their feeling of gratitude towards him. In the beginning of 2015, Xi again went back Liang Jiahe village to visit the villagers. He put the photos taken during this visit in his office so as to review his deep relationship with ordinary people.
In 1982, Xi just served as deputy secretary of Zheng Ding county in Hebei province. And then he ate with common people in the canteen, had a chat with them and did research in the village to learn about the real situation by bike. Zheng Ding county was known for high-yield grain production, but at that time, some farmers in that village couldn’t afford their living. Promoted by Xi, the policy “all-round contract”was popularized in the whole country which also laid a solid foundation for Zheng Ding’s economic development. Having been the secretary of Zheng Ding county, Xi led all county villagers to carry on reform. Hence they changed the traditional economic model(farming as the only one element in economic development) and farming model(grain as the only one production in farming), and they implemented several strategies to prosper the county such as developing industry and culture, improving technology, cultivating talents and promoting tourism. All of these strategies helped Zheng Ding to take off the hat of“the county of high-yield production but poverty”and march on the road of wealth.
