Once in a lake, now to the world: Wang Shuangyu

Dressed in a blue Li Ning coat, with a belt that has Mercedes Benz sign at the center, village director Wang Shuangyu warmly greeted everyone he met on the street in Shao Zhuangzi village, Baiyang Lake, Hebei Province. He added up a specific question for each one he greeted: from whether or not one is going to fetch delivery, to how one’s daughter midterm exam goes on. He would smile from time to time to whoever he met.

邵庄子村  陈佳颖/摄

Normally, you wouldn’t associate people who has this outfit to be a government official in a small village. Together with his dark skin, lean figure and vigor, you would more likely think him to be a successful businessman. However, Wang Shuangyu is the one who lead the village and accomplished construction of sewage disposal system in the recent two year.

Under the development guideline of Xiong’An New Area, a national level new area in Hebei province, local government asks all villages in Baiyang Lake to construct new sewage disposal system to solve the water pollution in the area. This move is of great importance as Baiyang Lake makes up the majority area of Xiong’An New Area. And improving environmental quality and ecological preservation is both local and national strategic priority.

But when the mission breaks down into each individual village, things can be really difficult. As the village director, Wang Shuangyu, need to lead village officials to mobilize people’s support, coordination and even necessary sacrifice to facilitate the construction.

“They may smile to you a lot and be really nice to you in daily life. But when the construction needs to put a pipe under their houses, they all throw a poker face to me.” said Wang Shuangyu with a bitter smile.

Many times, the construction work would have to go through villagers’ graveyard and hence need their tombs to be relocated. This was very controversial, especially when rural areas in China often consider the moving of tombs as a sign of bad luck. In that case, Wang would have lengthy knee-to-knee conversation with villagers who wouldn’t cooperate.

“It’s difficult. But I would remind them of the kindness they have received from other villagers and how such construction would make people who helped them have cleaner toilet, fresher water and nicer environment.”

When asked if this could really work, Wang proudly smiled, “It worked. This is because villagers here are all very kind and compassionate in nature.”

Apart from this, Wang sometimes also needs to be flexible to smooth the persuasion. When it’s hard to ask villagers to relocate tombs, Wang would tell them that they can still find a good graveyard to settle their ancestors. And they can get a fair compensation as well. Upon reconsideration, many villagers would eventually say yes to construction.

Wang said that after he told them about these considerations, they felt that it’s not nice to stop such a work since other people all agree on the construction. They felt that as long as they can find a good graveyard for their ancestors, together with some compensation, it’s not that bad.

However, according to his colleague, Shao Xiaoqi, Wang would meet dead end as well. “But what impressed me a lot is that he would sacrifice himself without hesitation to set up a good example.” Shao said that once a villager wouldn’t say a yes to build a sewage disposal pool near his house as he feared that it would cause bad smell. They talked to him for days and offered good compensation. But that villager wouldn’t agree anyway.

Wang Shuangyu, knowing there’s no more room for negotiation, made a decision that he would let construction team change the location of the pool to the place near his house.

“If you won’t do this. Put the pool near my house! I don’t mind. If my family mind this, I would persuade them. But this has to be done. The construction is for everyone’s benefit”. Wang told us that this is what he said to that villager.

With the completion of new sewage disposal system and other constructions and improvements, Shao Zhuangzi village is now a hot spot for many tourists, some of whom are foreigners. The sewage disposal system is decorated to be a small garden that fits well into the surroundings.

Wang’s family restaurant now can see more than 800 tourists per day have meals in his restaurant during high season of tourism.

“My three nephews use Kuaishou (a short video platform in China) to introduce our village and attract tourists. They each now have more than 50,000 followers now” said Wang Shuangyu, showing satisfaction on his face. Many fans become visitors to the village and to the restaurant of Wang’s.

Village officials like Wang are now using their wisdom and compassion to lead people in Baiyang Lake to build an eco-friendly, happy and colorful life imagined by Xiong’An New Area and shared by many in the future.