Chongqing Evening News, May 6, 2010

The tradition can be traced to Chiarman Mao, who reportedly picked up a piece of dropped food, sent it to mouth while exclaiming that the living condition of the farmers was still tough. Now it has become a well-established pattern for Chinese officials to voice sympathy for farmers as much as they can. In a culture where praise of the virtues of farmers makes one look nobler, there is even be a unvoiced consensus that the role of singing tribute to farmers should always be reserved for the party bosses.

Today's Chongqing Evening News reported on Chongqing party secretary Bo Xilai's meeting with university students who had become village-level administrators. Some village cadres reflected with certain remorse how they blundered their jobs in one way or another at the beginning and gradually learned the lack of the true feelings for the people was the cause of all problems. Predictably, Bo, the most authoritative figure present pulled off the old peasants-are-great-let's-learn-from-them trick once again, praising "farmers have the sincerest emotions" and reiterating that anyone who want to understand China need to understand the Chinese farmers first.

Some excerpts of Bo's speech:

"老百姓是真正的唯物主义者，你只要全心全意地工作，就能得到农民兄弟的认可"
The average people are the true materialists, if you work wholeheartedly, you will be recognized by the farmer brothers.

"我们的教育环境不仅要有大中小学和研究生院，还要有农村这个广大天地。...同学们学到，感悟到的东西，不亚于读个研究生"
Our education should not only consist of schools, universities and graduate schools, it should be completed with the vast rural area...What you have learned and experienced there is not inferior to what a graduate school can teach you.

"对中国人来说，广大的农村有最基本的知识，几亿农民有最本源的感情，改善他们的生产生活状况是最重要的任务，能与他们自然亲切地交流才算学会说话"
For the Chinese people, the vast countryside has the most fundamental knowledge, hundreds and millions of farmers have the sincerest emotions. To improve their production and living condition is the most important task. I would not say that you can talk unless you talk with them (farmers) naturally with kind feelings.

"我们常讲要爱人民，对人民有感情。而对人民的感情是具体的不是抽象的。我国有七八亿农民，对人们群众的感情很大程度上是对农民的感情，对他们有没有深刻的认知和亲切的关爱"
We talk a lot about the love for the people. The love is not abstract. We have seven to eight hundreds of thousands of farmers, so to some extent, the feelings towards the people are that towards the farmers. It all comes down to whether you have an intimate knowledge about them and kind concerns towards them.

"What you have learned and experienced there is not inferior to what a graduate school can teach you" ? If countryside is such a ideal place to receive education, one may wonder why Mr. Bo didn't send his son to a farming village instead of Eton.