Occasionally, when there are articles about the new countryside, like the one I read over the weekend, they are just about vague ideas like a boring introductory course to political science. Such articles are either written by scholars who have not been to the countryside for years, or by those who are incapable of thinking in any kind of operational detail.

This is not the kind of press that will help China build the new countryside. Those who habitually talk big ideas should not forget to learn from the realities not only to save their brains from gathering mould, but to learn how to render a useful service to society...

...I wonder why the national media organizations do not send their young reporters to stay in the countryside for a sustained period of time to find out, and tell us, what's really happening out there.

Fair enough. But the problem is not that Chinese reporters are not willing to visit or write about the countryside or even that editors are not interested in the problems of the countryside. The problem is that newspapers are not willing to publish anything that might get them into trouble with someone, and there's an awful lot of stuff in the Chinese countryside that can get a newspaper into trouble.

Nonetheless, there's plenty of information about the countryside on the Internet. Here is a selection of translations by ESWN of articles about the Chinese countryside, many written by Chinese journalists but never published in Chinese media: Search on word 'village' of ESWN site.