Discussion keeps the world turning.
Every summer, heaps of university students trade campus life for rural communities.
They show up with laptops, lesson plans, and big ideas teaching kids selling produce online and helping where they're needed.
But here's what the brochures don't tell you.
The real story isn't just what they bring to the countryside, it's what they bring back.
After that, remember when TV ran its own schedule?
One episode, one night, one chance to see it, and if you missed it, well, too bad for you.
After that, streaming handed us the remote for good, and we devoured whole seasons in a single weekend.
But now the pendulum is swinging back again.
Weekly drops are making a comeback, short form is stealing attention, and the binge model is asking itself, did we change storytelling forever, or is this just the next twist in an old tale?
Coming to you live from our studios in Beijing, this is Roundtable.
I'm Steve Hatherly.
Thanks for being with us today.
And for the show, I'm with Fei-Fei and Yushan.
First up...
Summer vacation is often seen as a time to relax, travel, or maybe gain some new experiences.
But for thousands of Chinese university students, it's also a time to leave campus and step into rural communities through the
Three
Going to the countryside program that's what it's called
They bring knowledge technology and youthful energy to those rural areas from live streaming local products to teaching kids and supporting community services
But are young volunteers only changing the places they visit or are they also being changed by the experiences themselves?
And when they step into the countryside, what kind of connection is created between those two sides?
Uh, Yuhan and Feifei, good afternoon to you both.
The program that we're going to talk about, the three going to the countryside program has been around for a very long time and it has attracted generations of students.
Yeah, for almost as long as I existed.
It was launched in 1997, and it's a nationwide program.
The 三下乡 were literally translated into three going to the countryside.
It's a summer volunteer program for undergraduate and junior college students, and that including students from regular universities, higher vocational colleges, and vocational undergraduate institutions as well.
So this program encourages young people to go into rural areas and grassroots communities where they can actually get their hands dirty on some really real life experiences like working in the fields.
Like going to the greenhouses and pick fruits and vegetables together with people who grow them.
So that's the kind of practical skills and skill packs that's helping them to contribute better to the society apart from just sitting in classrooms and universities and schools.
Yeah, and especially there has been a slight change when it comes to the nature of this campaign because when it was created in 1997, it was more of a volunteering assistant program where
You know, college students with better knowledges, better knowing of the world, going to the countryside and bringing new knowledges and experiences when it comes to culture, science, technology, and also healthcare to underdeveloped and the most remote rural areas.
But now I think it's been changed to this mutual help, mutual assistance relationship between the students themselves and the rural villages.
Kind of a two-way learning experience?
Yes, precisely.
A two-way exchange?
Yeah, precisely.
They, of course, the students will bring their knowledges, especially when it comes to cutting edge technologies like using internet, smart technologies, using AI and drones.
And they have a lot of creativity as well to contribute to a lot of programs to the villages
But also they gain real world knowledges practical abilities and deeper understanding of the society even with i think most of the programs under the three going to the countryside last for like about two weeks
So at least it's a glimpse of the real world for them.
Yeah, and it offers them a different perspective, these students.
And actually, if we look through the modern history of China, the becoming of us today, there's been...
Similar campaigns, but not on university students.
It's just in recent years, the focus is on how high tech and university students skills and their strength can help with rural development.
And previously, it's been like motivating young farmers, for example, to work in the remote areas to also contribute to the country.
So we see that as a
Heritage of the previous versions.
So when they go to the countryside, these young students, what do they bring?
You said that they volunteer, they contribute kind of where they're needed.
Maybe it's their professional knowledge that they've acquired to that point through their university classes.
Maybe they're just there to assist.
I mean, what kind of goes on when they get into these programs?
I think the first big contribution that they can make is about technology.
Students, for example, especially those students coming from agriculture universities and research institutes,
They can really tackle practical challenges and, for example, improving their farming tools for farmers, developing better crop varieties, improving the soil quality.
And also for students with the backgrounds of technology, they can also exploring how AI, drones, smart sensors, robots,
Can be used in agriculture.
They can be used for monitoring crops, making farming more efficient.
I actually saw a video this morning about a trip from a Shaanxi Science and Technology University last year.
And they went to Xi Ji in Ningxia, and they researched and communicated with not only the villagers themselves, but also companies on the plastic mulching films.
On the fills, the very thin plastic layers that they put on top of soils to keep the soil have more moisture and to keep the temperature at a stable level.
And they went to the Xi Ji County and they talked to, for example, companies that are producing this kind of plastic products and learn about their challenges and the way they're doing it.
And then they go to the fields talking to the farmers about how they are using this kind of technology.
And also they are promoting on some level the biodegradable plastic products among the farmers themselves.
And then they come back with not only learning more about how the latest technology that companies are using right now, but also the demands coming from the farmers themselves.
When it comes to this, you can see quite an everyday product for these farmers.
Yeah.
What do they need?
What do they not need?
What works?
What doesn't work?
When we talked about on Roundtable how companies were getting involved with universities and maybe putting people in the classrooms to –
Bring real world problems into the classroom and let the students, you know, through hands on experiences, try to solve them there.
It better prepares them for working when they're finished with their university days.
This is kind of.
The same but opposite,
But it's taking the students out of the classrooms, putting them in those real-world environments, and then letting them experience for themselves firsthand, like we said, what works, what doesn't, what's needed, what isn't needed, what's wasteful.
How do the farmers feel about this?
The direction that the industry is going these days, what products are most useful, tools are most useful.
There's just a never ending list of learning opportunities for the students there.
And that's just one example.
Yeah, and increasing the yields and enhancing the growing techniques is one thing.
What's equally important is how they can actually help the farmers to boost the sales via more convenient channels than physical ones.
For example, e-commerce, how to borrow the tide.
Live streams?
Yeah, of live streams and e-commerce market out there that can really make a difference for them.
For example, just this summer, a team of students from Southwest China's Guizhou Vocational College of Food Engineering, they traveled to rural township in Guizhou, one township called Tongren.
And they were there to provide free training in e-commerce and social media.
So before launching this program, the college actually conducted a survey and found that many of those farmers, it's not that they haven't tried live streaming.
It's just they don't know exactly how it should be done.
And by mimicking what they've seen online, it didn't really end up so well with them.
So
This team, they analyzed what they need and in terms of what this particular local place is bountiful with, what they're really specialized in growing and what's the best selling items locally.
For example, there are TCM herb like Tianma.
And also there's glutinous rice that's very famous locally, as well as the grape that they're trying to grow locally and promote.
So in order to address all of the above issues, they conducted a survey before they go.
And then after they landed, the students designed free training program that combined classroom lessons with hand-on practice in the fields to these local people.
And by local people, I mean young people that returned to the hometown.
And also local farmers, as well as local even officials.
They're teaching them how to, for example, edit a video of the grape growing on the vine within their greenhouse, which picture angle is the best, and when of the day is the best shooting time.
For you to create a video, how long a video should be like and how to edit it.
You know, things like that, the farmers probably don't grow up knowing, but these young kids...
I didn't grow up knowing that either, to be fair.
But these young people, they have the advantage of growing in the era of social media.
So they know that better.
And in some other cases, I remember seeing examples in eastern China, Zanghui province, where those volunteers, they sit in front of the camera themselves and did live stream.
On selling the, I think, a starch, a potato starch or sweet potato starch for local farmers.
And they were exhausted.
You know, scrolling and buying things from live stream is one thing.
While sitting there and be a live stream host yourself is totally another.
And it's great, too, that they offer classes because if you just went there and set it up for them a couple of times and did it for them, there's a lot of technicalities there that would be easily forgotten, I think.
But to offer classes to teach people how to do it is just on another level.
Yeah, agriculture, tech in terms of live stream, also in the education sector as well.
A lot of university volunteer students, they go to rural schools and communities.
And what they do there is they provide tutoring, they organize different types of classes like science classes, for example, and they offer activities like arts and sports and mental health education, which I think is fantastic as well.
And for a lot of kids, these young volunteers become teachers.
Yes, they're teacher for a period of time, but it's also kind of a role model that's stepping into the classroom who can help them to become interested in certain things.
You know, maybe you're talking to a future athlete.
Maybe you're talking to a future counselor.
Through the mental health classes.
Who knows, right?
You're just inspiring curiosity and interest for these kids.
I used to volunteer in one of the primary school here in Beijing.
It was mostly for children of the migrant workers and that was almost more than 20 years ago.
And as a student of the English major, we, of course, teach basic English to these primary students, primary school students.
And I remember... Like 10 years old?
Like 9 or 10 years old.
And one of the reasons, of course, just at that time, our English proficiency is most of the time better than their English teachers.
Oh, yes, yes, yes.
And the second is that they feel closer to us because we seem younger than their teachers.
We're in our 20s and we can communicate more than what's been taught on the textbooks.
We can communicate about gaming, about novels, about cartoons.
And they feel like they can really have a conversation with us.
And I remembered one of my friends was really, really popular among them.
And one of the kids asked her, you know, Mrs. Zhang, I suppose that's her name.
Mrs. Zhang, what can I do to become a person like you?
And she was like, you know, just listing things, you know, for a 20-year-old, you don't really know how to answer that question on the spot.
But that sort of drove us, you know, that is the moment you sort of realize, you know,
We don't know this kind of group existed in a big city like Beijing.
And whatever you say can have a big impact on those kids.
Yeah, we were thinking we're just taught teaching English.
So just teaching basic words, just having fun in a classroom with a bunch of, you know, 10 year olds.
But we never thought, you know, we are carrying that kind of weight to us.
And that sort of starting to give us perspectives, really.
Yeah, you never, well, and I think it's an easy mistake to make.
You don't realize the impact that you could potentially have, right?
There's also community services, different types of programs, community services, public welfare.
Health education, supporting elderly residents, helping with community governance.
I mean, it's just a whole lot of stuff.
So from the volunteers point of view, from the volunteers perspective.
I think it's great in terms of that because you can find something that interests you, your area of expertise, if you will.
All right.
So let's talk about the experience from the volunteers point of view, because I'm thinking that like you, Feifei, when you go out and you have an experience like this, then it can impact you.
Your own values, your own future career choices, your own understanding of society depending on where you are, where you're going in the country and what you're doing.
I think there's a lot to be learned for the volunteers.
Yeah, because we're talking about around their 20-year-old.
They sort of have in this semi phase in their life, they're sort of getting to know the world, but not really...
And going to a rural place like a village, talking to real villagers and learning about their experiences, their daily challenges, just daily life can open up a different world for you.
On some level, it could lead to career choices in the future.
For example, let's say a student that are studying agriculture theories in colleges, but she or he doesn't really have that real connection about what I learned in classroom versus what's been used.
Yeah.
Like, how am I going to use what I learned?
Yeah, like, of course, using smart sensors on fields sound really cool and improve your efficiency in farming and improve your yields on the fields.
But when you go to the real world, it's not as simple as just installing those smart sensors.
They could be running into some real world challenges like who they need to have the know-how of running these sensors, maintaining their sensors.
And there's also the acceptance of a technology like this among people that are in their 60s and even 70s.
And how do you make that communication with the villagers so that you can have your technology on the ground?
And that is by this sort of a two week experiences for this university is something they can take home and to start sit on it and reflect on their future choices.
Yeah, we talk about that a lot with tech.
You can sit in a classroom and feel like, well, this is easy to understand.
I get it.
Everybody should be able to get it should be able to apply this quite simply out in the field out in the real world.
And you get out there and you realize, well, maybe you're dealing with somebody, a farmer or someone that isn't so tech savvy.
And that tech that you thought was so simple is actually not for the person that's going to end up using it.
So when you see that, then it takes you back inside the classroom and it makes you think, OK, well, we need to have more discussions about this.
Types of products that we're going to put out there in the future.
One of 100,000 examples, I suppose.
I think, too, you know, a student who's out there, I don't know, Yushan, did you have this type of experience?
Not really with younger kids, but with elders as a matter of fact.
I also majored in English.
And back in uni, I remember being sent to a nearby library.
It's a public library in the same district where my university was at.
So we kind of just blend into an English corner that's held in the library.
And our task was to get one-on-one tutoring with the elders.
And their average age was like 60, 70, some 80.
You're tutoring them.
Yeah, one gentleman, he told me his name was Tiger because he was born in the year of the tigers.
And he was above his 80s when we were chatting.
And he was able to master simple words.
But his issue was he cannot utter a full sentence using the words that he knows.
He doesn't know the structure of sentences.
I remember this so vividly because I was helping him learning English while hearing his story of why he chose to learn English, what he gets from talking to young people in unexpected ways in this English corner.
But the thing with me...
Is that I not only brought back those stories that I feel so fruitful and kind of make me feel like this work means something, not only to me, but also to them.
But also I feel sorry in a way that I know I'm only there because I kind of need a volunteer certificate to submit back to my school.
And once that is done, I perhaps will not be able to return back to it.
Yeah, that's a very honest assessment.
Thanks for saying that because I think that's part of the criticism about these types of programs is that these students aren't going there necessarily out of the kindness of their own heart.
And it sounds harsh and it really sounds unfair because they're doing something great, right?
But it's not without incentive.
It is something that can be used to improve their scores at university or however that system works.
So that's that's partly true, or at least you can make that argument.
And then another and maybe this is kind of along the same lines.
Another criticism is that these visits, you know, two weeks is it depends on your perspective that can be seen as a long time or it can be seen as a blink of an eye.
And these visits might be seen as symbolic rather than something that can really make a difference to those people over the long term.
Yeah, and I think that applies to basically all kinds of different volunteering work.
Personally, I don't think that really matters when a person joins a volunteer work.
It's truly out of their kindness or there are some more practical reasons either for their
Personal reputation or a score at the school.
It doesn't really matter, I think, as long as they really are doing that work and making slight changes even to a community on the ground.
I think that's what really matters when it comes to volunteer works like this.
And then when it comes to, I think through, since the year 1997 till now, we do see this trend on some level that some universities and colleges and even some students
Viewed it as a sort of, I have to get this done, just why not just go somewhere and stay in a village for about two weeks and then I can return to my home.
Enjoy my summer vacation finally.
And I think what's been changed in recent years is how you apply to get a position in a three going campaign like this.
What's different?
It's like you have to have a proposal.
It's not as simple as, you know, I'm a really kind person and I have knowledge, I apply and then I can go, no.
You first of all
Of course the school will have a notice saying you know we are starting this kind of campaign this year in the summer vacation and then you need to find your teammates mostly around 10 to 15 people for a team question
Sorry to interrupt is this mandatory
No.
I think it's mandatory for the schools to organize such campaign every year.
Okay.
But from the student side, it's not mandatory to take part in these programs.
Yes.
And even I think on some level, you need to compete for that because you need to have a found solid proposal submitted to your school.
Yeah.
Sorry, I interrupted.
So you said you get a team together.
Yeah, you need a team of about 10 to 15 people.
And you also need to have a tutor or a lecturer or teacher, you know, basically to follow to go on the trips with you together.
And then you need to work out a proposal and hand to your school and convincing them, this is a good project.
And these are the goals we want to achieve through participating or going forward with this project.
And when your school gives you a nod, you can finally make the trip happening.
So it's not as simple as you apply and you are free to go.
It's more like you need to have a solid framework of where you want to do, what area you want to focus, and what goals, what results we can expect out of this.
You also need kind of a report coming back
You know, saying what, concluding what you've done, what results you've gathered throughout these two weeks of experiences.
It's very well organized.
Yes.
So I think right now, I think they're sort of
Trying to solve that perception that they're more of a symbolic visits rather than real practical feasibility of these projects.
I love that because it shows that the universities are taking this very seriously, as they should.
Let me rephrase.
It shows that the universities want these programs to be as impactful as they can be.
And by having an application process, then they can ensure that the students who are the best suited to whatever program it happens to be,
Will be sent to those particular programs.
And that's how they can ensure to have the best and maybe longest lasting effect.
And on the continuity of such programs, we mentioned earlier how this could potentially become just a one-time experience.
So universities and talent cultivation organizations, meaning like vocational schools, they're also working on that too.
How to turn these programs, these well-organized, well-structured programs into long-term cooperation with the local government or local people.
Between the universities and the communities.
Usually that's the university who is kind of making things happen, like collaborations happen.
And one good example would be the science and technology courtyard model, 科技小院, that's been running in China for a while, throughout China and also I heard it's overseas too.
So, for example, it's reported by Southwest University of Science and Technology that they've participated in one of such courtyards program held not only by the teachers, but also joined by the students from that university, too.
And that courtyard that they've participated is in autonomous county.
In southwest China's Sichuan province, where abundant rainfall creates ideal conditions for growing bamboo.
Of course, that's where the pandas are from.
But for years, the local farmers... And they eat a lot of that.
And you know, people all over China eat bamboos too, the fresh bamboo shoots.
But for years, local bamboo farmers, they lacked the knowledge to properly manage their bamboo forests and resulting in relatively low yields over the years.
So to tackle that, these university students and teams of teachers and students, they hiked deep into the bamboo forest.
To test the soil, diagnose plant disease, and brought the latest agricultural techniques that they've learned from the ivory tower of their academic side of life to the mountains, to the farmers.
And they kind of work side by side together, too, and also kind of distribute customized fertilizers to help them grow bamboos better.
The results have been remarkable.
Bamboo shoot yields have increased nearly five folds per acre, that's according to local farmers, and the shoots are now larger, crispier, and sold at a much higher price with higher quality too.
Wow.
This little courtyard program that the university had with local government.
So this is just one example of how this whole campaign is benefiting people across China.
So by the beginning of this year, more than 1,800 of such science and technology backyards or courtyards had already been established.
By over 150 universities and research institutes, we can see that this is a whole movement that they're pushing so that these kind of projects don't end up to be one-time thing.
And these batch of students graduates, fine.
We've got new, fresher graduates.
Like new university students that's from the next year to keep on participating as long as this courtyard exists.
And also I've spoke to people from African countries, also part of the Science and Technology Courtyard projects.
I think they're mostly working in some agricultural governmental agencies in their home countries.
But now are pursuing their either higher education, a master degree or doctoral degree in China, or in some short-term tutoring or training courses.
And they told me that this kind of courtyard really brings you problem-solving skills, especially when it comes to the fields.
Really solving real problems
Because when it comes to scholars in their home countries, they mentioned a lot of them do not want to go to the fields because what you get from the fields, you know, increasing the yields of a certain crop won't end up getting published on prestigious science and technology journal.
And so they are mostly more focused on the most high-tech part of research in agriculture.
But when it comes to what really solves the questions and problems for the farmers,
It's something different.
You need to go into the fields, talk to the farmers.
And they told me that participating in this courtyard, there's one in Beijing and also in Hebei as well, that they're able to know how to make that communication and what are the real challenges on the fields.
And so they see it's also very valuable even for them.
And they are welcoming people.
Similar courtyard set up in their home countries as well.
The program is called Three Going to the Countryside.
Fei-Fei, if students are interested in signing up for this, you said it has to be done through the university, I guess through their departments, right?
This isn't
A website that you can visit or something like that?
There is also, they have an official WeChat account called Chuang Qing Chun, where also you can apply to return to your hometown as also part of the three going to the countryside campaign that you can find internship position and volunteer positions, even your hometown.
So different channels, but mostly through your own colleges and universities.
Sometimes one program can incorporate students from different majors into one team.
They're encouraging that, to have the one team having different background, different majors, students.
Interdisciplinary volunteer programs.
Yeah, that's the key word.
Very successful.
It's been going for so long and it sounds like it's going to be going for a lot longer.
