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As a seventy-two branch secretary in the village, Shi Shuzhu created a scientific method of harnessing the sand. He has spent forty-nine years harnessing the sand whose deeds have been highly praised by the central government and he is famous as “Foolish Old Man in harnessing the sand”. |
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We meet Mr. Shi (first on the right) in Songhe Villlage. |
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We listening to his deeds in harnessing the sand.
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We visit the photographs of Mr. Shi and the leaders of our country. |
Today we go to interview Mr. Shi. He welcomes us at the gate which makes us feel quite warm.
He tells his experiences in harnessing the sand in the past fifty years. We ask the first question what the village was like before the harnessing of the sand. He tells us there was only eight trees in the village at that time. There was sandstorms in almost half of the year. More than thirty families moved to other places.
We then ask the second question when he started to harness the sand. He tells us when he was nineteen in 1955, he established a team to harness the sand. However, all the trees they planted have been destroyed by the sand in eight years. In the winter in 1963, he came up with a new idea and found how to solve the problems. In the next year, they started again and some achievements have been made.
Then we ask the third question what these effective methods are. He tells us the scientific method is to combine the clay and the trees and grow the crops on it. Through this method, 2400 mu fertile land have been got.
Then we ask him how they save water in such a dry environment. He tells us the water has played a very important role in the harnessing of the sand. Early in the 1960s and 1970s, they dug holes in the well and they can get water of three or four meters deep. As the level of the water reduced, they could not get water even of twenty meters deep. And the lands became more and more dry. In 1995, Gansu Province started a water-saving project. Minqin County also wanted to choose a village as the important point to launch the project. Other people in the village did not agree because they thought it time-consuming and uneffective. But he thought it a good method. Then he started the project. When the villagers reproached him, he guided other officials in the village to work hard to show them their achievements. They spent four years on the project and they have saved a lot of water. All the villagers praised him and other villages also followed them to start the project.
Then Mr. Shi introduces us the village now. In fifty years, he has turned the desert into a fertile forest. The villagers have also become richer than before. The trees they have planted not only protect the land, but also create economic benefits of more than 2.5 million yuan.
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