Dream coming true for a family adrift
Print Edition
HUANG Fengying, 45, has spent most of her life on a boat on Lake Doushui, a reservoir in east China’ s Jiangxi Province.
She usually gets up at 4am, prepares breakfast for her daughter, then takes her to the elementary school on the other side of the reservoir, a 40-minute cruise. Huang spends the rest of the day on the boat with her husband, fishing. If they are lucky, they catch a dozen or so fish, and make about 20 yuan (US$3.20) a day.
The small boat is extremely cold in winter and very hot in summer. It is nothing more than a wooden floor covered with bamboo and a bark roof, equipped with a few simple household items. The roof leaks when it rains and the boat is always very damp. Both Huang and her husband Liang Xuerwu, also 45, suffer from arthritis and rheumatism.
Fishing is not a great way to make a living in the area, and the family have been struggling, earning just 4,000 yuan a year. Huang also grows some vegetables in a nearby village.
About 5,000 people lead this kind of isolated life in Jiangxi. Sixty years ago a hydroelectric plant was built to exploit local tungsten ore. The reservoir flooded villages and most people moved onto islands or new lakeside settlements.
But Huang and her family will soon bid farewell to their waterlogged life with the promise of a house on dry land under government plans to relocate the “floating population” in southern Jiangxi. Each family will be given 40,000 yuan along with their new home. They can also apply for low interest loans.
“My biggest wish was to move into a new house on the land, and I am so happy that my dream is coming true,” Huang said.
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