Chinese farmers taste fruits of information technology
7/12/2005 11:31
Talking of his eldest brother who died of liver cancer eight years ago, Li
Weichang, 40, said tearfully that the lack of telecommunications at that time
was to be blamed.
Li was born at Pinghe, a remote village in Fapa Town of
Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture in southwest China's Yunnan
province. At an altitude of 2,200 meters, the village looks out upon Myanmar
across the Nujiang River.
There is only one cragged pathway connecting the
village with the outside world. When someone suffers from an acute disease, the
villagers have to carry the patient with a stretcher and walk for at least five
hours before they can take a bus to the nearest hospital 40 km away.
A local
prosecutor, Li was about to travel to neighbouring Sichuan Province when he was
told his brother was having "a serious stomachache."
He immediately contacted
a hospital to arrange for a medical examination. It was impossible, however, to
inform his family of the arrangement because there was no telephone in the
village.
Five weeks had passed before the terminally ill man was finally
hospitalized, only to be informed it was "too late" and there was no effective
cure.
His brother's death deepened Li's worry about his octogenarian parents
and the other two brothers at home. But greetings could be conveyed only orally
by villagers traveling between their underdeveloped hometown and the city center
where Li worked.
It is unimaginable for people in the country's affluent
regions where mobile phones are commonplace.
Farmers in the remote Pinghe
Village had never dreamed of a handset until a mobile telecommunications tower
was set up in the village on Sept. 4 this year, bringing the isolated village
into China's overall mobile telecommunications network.
For the first time in
his life, Li heard the laughter of his aged parents via a mobile phone, amid the
noise of firecrackers setting off by farmers to celebrate the establishment of
the tower.
"Now I can call my parents at any moment and ask about their
health although I am far away from home," said Li, grinning.
More than 200 of
the 370 households in the village began to use mobile phones after the tower
went into operation.
So far the prefecture has established more than 200
mobile telecommunications stations in its rural areas, covering 92 percent of
the 341 administrative villages.
The introduction of modern
telecommunications has brought economic returns to local farmers who rely
heavily on the breeding and trading of Mongolian gazelle.
"I can call my
relatives and friends outside the mountain and ask about local livestock's
prices before bargaining with buyers," said 42-year-old Li Huichang with a
hearty smile. "In this way, I can sell at higher prices than in the
past."
"People now know that information can bring money," he added.
In an
effort to alleviate poverty, the province will invest about 500 million yuan
(US$61.6 million) to establish over 1000 mobile telecommunications stations in
more than 1500 administrative villages within two or three years. At present,
506 villages in the province have their own mobile stations.
Considering
farmers' consumption power, Yunnan Mobile has provided free incoming call
services and lowered the charge of outgoing calls, together with cheap mobile
phones. Now farmers can buy a mobile phone with merely 300 yuan (about
US$37).
China has made remarkable progress in narrowing digital gap in the
past 10 years, according to a report of the International Telecommunication
Union (ITU).
China is the biggest country in terms of both mobile and fixed
phone subscribers, which stand at 383 million and 348 million respectively at
the end of October.
Experts say there is still huge potential for the
development of China's information network in the vast rural
areas.
Xinhua
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