2023-09-29 22:30:06
Peking (ots/PRNewswire) – The Mid-Autumn Festival, which falls on a Friday, has been celebrated by the Chinese for thousands of years and is typically marked by family gatherings, full moon viewing and the eating of mooncakes.
The Chinese people have always associated this traditional festival with their deep longing for their homeland and their deep connection with their country.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has spoken regarding nostalgia on many occasions, expressing his deep affection for the country and its people.
From Fuping and Liangjiahe in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province to Zhengding in northern China’s Hebei Province to Fujian Province, Zhejiang Province, Shanghai and Beijing, Xi considers these places where he has worked as his “hometowns.”
Nostalgia means missing a place following you leave it.
During a state visit to Costa Rica in 2013, Xi visited the home of a farming family and spoke regarding his experiences in Liangjiahe.
“It’s extremely rare that a president speaks so passionately and with so much pride regarding being a farmer. Some people might downplay that aspect, but he doesn’t. He emphasizes it,” said the Costa Rican farmer’s son.
In the late 1960s, Xi left Beijing and moved to a village called Liangjiahe in an arid part of Shaanxi to work as a farm laborer, spending seven years in the countryside working and living alongside farmers.
He was separated from his family, slept in cave dwellings, suffered from flea bites, and worked as hard as the other villagers tending fields, herding sheep, transporting dung, and mining coal.
Before leaving Liangjiahe, Xi thanked the people of Liangjiahe for their selfless welcome and support. “I will never forget what Liangjiahe gave me,” he said.
Whether in a small farmhouse courtyard in Costa Rica, at the podium in Washington state, or at the Global High-Level Forum on Poverty Alleviation and Development and the High-Level Dialogue on Global Development, Xi has spoken regarding his time in Liangjiahe.
In the spring of 1982, Xi volunteered for grassroots work and moved to Zhengding, a poor county in Hebei Province.
For more than three years, Xi served as deputy secretary and then secretary of the Zhengding County Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), and did a lot of pioneering work with the local CPC committee in planning strategies and laying a solid foundation for Zhengding’s development .
Recalling his experiences in Zhengding during an inspection trip to Hebei in 2013, Xi said he got a direct understanding of how the villagers feel because he was “with the comrades every day, talking to them, thought and worked together.”
Wherever Xi goes, he brings these sincere and simple feelings to people.
“Don’t cut off your true feelings because of the long distances, don’t forget your true feelings because of the restless life, and don’t ignore your true feelings because of the hustle and bustle of life,” Xi said at a 2017 Spring Festival gathering.
When you see that the place you worked in is constantly evolving, you are happiest
In 1988, Xi became party chief of Ningde Prefecture, then one of the poorest regions in southeast China’s Fujian Province. In the two years he worked there, Xi visited 123 of the 124 communities, including three of the four communities without access to paved roads. Xiadang, a township deep in the mountains of Shouning County, was one of them.
Xi visited Xiadang three times and personally led poverty alleviation efforts in the remote city.
On his first visit, it took Xi regarding three hours by car and two hours on foot along rugged mountain paths to reach the community.
Xi decided that accessibility is an essential prerequisite for the area’s development. Work on a highway began just a few months following his first visit, and in January 1991 the road to Xiadang was opened.
The second visit took place on July 26, 1989, following the district was hit by the worst floods in a century. Xi expressed condolences to the people affected by the floods and sent them funds for post-disaster reconstruction. On August 7, 1996, he visited the community for the third time to investigate and lead the poverty alleviation work.
Thanks to poverty alleviation efforts, enormous changes have occurred in Ningde.
During his visit to Fujian in March 2021, Xi met several tourists from Shangrao in Jiangxi Province who said they only needed a 22-minute train ride to Wuyi Mountain, a famous summer resort in Fujian.
“When you see that the place you worked in is constantly evolving, you are happiest,” he once said.
At a banquet to welcome guests gathered for the opening ceremony of the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, Xi highly recommended Zhejiang to the guests.
“I have worked in Zhejiang Province for several years. The province has committed itself to reform and opening-up and is now on the path to high-quality development,” Xi said, adding that it is building a shared prosperity demonstration zone and has become a pioneer of Chinese modernization.
“My job is to serve the people. It is very tiring but also very fulfilling,” Xi said, although he knows that governing such a large country requires a high level of responsibility and hard work.
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