Bill's village and the family home. Its beauty took my breath away the first time I visited in August 2006. A whole new world and I feel privilidged to now be part of it. The family home is a wooden house up in the mountains. The countryside is extremely lush and the house is comfortably nestled into the bamboo forests and blooming vegetation. It's perched on top of the family's main livelihood - their rice paddies. The whole family is up as soon as the sun rises to get to work. The lively birdsong and constant insect buzzing mean it's not that easy to stay in bed! As well as the rice, Bill's family grows pretty much every vegetable under the sun! Everything is timed to perfection. the farmers know exactly when to plant and harvest their crops. They use knowledge which has been passed through the generations.

There is a wonderful sense of community in the countryside. Everyone knows everyone else and are likely related in some way! I can't keep track of Bill's family - his Uncles, Aunties, Cousins, etc! Children look on every house in the village as their own and everywhere we went they'd always be a random child tagging along.
Bill's Grandparents are almost 80 yrs old but they still climb the mountains, carrying their hand woven baskets, to plant and harvest the crops. They say they will keep working until they drop dead in the fields! The whole family lives together in the house. It was built by Bill's Grandparents. No mortgages to worry about! Bill's Grandparents could certainly write their own version of the famous 'Wild Swans.' It's amazing to think of the changes they've seen in their lifetimes. At one point the whole village was run as a Communist commune. They look on that as an extremely harsh and hard time.

The natural habitat surrounding the village is stunning - endless bamboo forests, hidden waterfalls, continuous bird song. The air here is clean and fresh, unlike the rest of China. A breath of fresh air in all ways!
For me, the piece de resistance is around the corner from the family home - 100s of fluffy angorra rabbits! This place really is my idea of heaven! Luckily they don't eat the rabbits! They comb their hair to make good, soft clothing.
There are chickens everywhere! The chickens are raised for their eggs. For meat, people mainly eat the pigs. They also share their toilet with them!! The food is quite tasty, mainly consisting of smoked meat, lots of veg and spice. It isn't anything like the Chinese food in Britain. As in all of China, everything still comes to a complete standstill for mealtimes!

It's often like stepping back in time seeing how things we take for granted are managed in the Chinese countryside! The people have no time for materialism or hassle. Luxuries seem pointless to them. We'd bought them presents from Britain but when we handed them over, they wouldn't accept them, thinking it was completely idiotic spending money on such useless things! The world of high tech machinery and materialism, although present in many Chinese cities, is an alien concept in the countryside.

Considering there are no foreign visitors to the village and I am about to marry their only son, Bill's family seemed very blase about my arrival. After the stares and judgemental looks in Chengdu, this was actually a very welcome relief. I soon realised this was very much a part of their simple, calm and relaxed nature. They take the world very much as they find it and don't even say hello and goodbye to each other, even when Bill was leaving for Britain. Like Bill, his family are extremely genuine people, an attribute that can be very difficult to find in China. They have no pretences or bid for power. You can see it in their beautiful gentle faces. Bill's Grandfather is particuarly adorable and I could spend all day staring at him! Unfortunately, the whole family speaks a strong Sichuan dialect which means I can't understand them and they can't understand me! It's like a completely different language but there are a few similarities which I'm clinging onto! It's back to the 'smile' as a main means of communication! There is a noticeable size difference between the generations. Bill's Grandma is tiny. She would often come into the room chattering away. When I asked Bill 'what is your cute little granny chirping about?' it turned out that rather than telling him to eat his greens and save money, she was on a forceful mission to tell him about Christianity!! Bill's Grandmother was converted to Christianity when she saw a visiting missionary. She saw they were doing good things so was easily converted. Granny soon spread the word and now the whole female side of the family is verging on happy clappy! I'm not too sure if they've quite got the true idea of it all, especially as they said 'the cross' is now irrelevant! However, they look to Christianity as hope for the future of China, a way to turn all Chinese people good and in my opinion, that definitely can't be considered a bad thing!

Bill's family live a simple life in the village but that's not to say that they're unhappy. They never complain about the hardships of life and seem very content, happily getting on with what they need to do in order to survive. Seeing people happily existing on what I would regard as the bare bones of survival but without any of the stress and worldly pressures that drive us Westerners often into insanity, I had to rethink the way I look at the world especially development issues. Bill and I first met because he had a desire to develop this area. However, if they're happy living how they do, I can't help think that they should just be left alone, they're better off without the nastiness of the modern world! I would hate to see this place and these people change. I think the real problems surface when somebody in the village falls ill and is unable to afford treatment or when an intelligent child has no opportunity to attend university. However, if every child wanted to attend university, who would be left to farm the land?
The current problem is that due to China's One Child Policy, a sole child is left responsible for the whole family. One farmer's income is insufficent to provide for a whole family. As always, China administration seems to forget its 70% rural population when these decisions are made.