Although I have a couple posts examining the Sichuan countryside already, I don’t think any amount could ever be adequate. Even if the imagery of the countryside ever manages to blend together, I believe there are endless powerful stories that took place in these parts.

Looking at the furthest ends of my own ancestry, one can find the dramatic accounts of urban youth dispatched to the countryside, rich landowners forced to give up their property, and destitute farmers securing opportunities for their children in the city and beyond. One family branch has somehow resided in the same land for generations. It’s a common setup, no doubt. That story starts like any other – about a rich family, with a very large piece of farmland. But the particular ups and downs describe a generational journey of ruin and recovery.

They don’t own that land anymore (private land ownership is no longer a thing). But it is their home, and it is stable, and it is fruitful. Long before the transformations brought on by the Revolution, the family that occupied this region owned the land about as far as you can point with your finger. I’d guess that the area was realistically some several hundred acres. They were essentially local royalty. But a prominent member of that family was unfortunately a victim of addiction.

That person, having fallen in love with opium, used any and all means to procure more, bartering land in exchange for the drug (possibly confiscated as debt repayment). Little by little, the family property whittled away. I don’t know what happened to the person, or if there was any land left at the end. There is apparently a short novel relating to it, called something like “All Families Fall“. Though I have not confirmed if that particular story is actually about the related individual or one of countless analogues.

In any event, whatever the family managed to hang onto would have been given up by the end of the Revolution. Yet the family never moved. Individuals move away of course (usually for school or work or to start a family of their own), but the nucleus remains. The person from my grandparents’ generation that came from this land had 7 siblings. Many of the children of those siblings are still there – with children and grandchildren of their own. There is quite a number of dwellings along a barebones paved road that cuts through, alongside the old bones of many former homes.

Those that stayed live off the land and the crops, as anyone in a countryside does. In fact, most of the houses around belong to somebody related to, if not the same lineage as the addict. And they are still building houses on this land.

I suppose I should read that book.