Background, Training Reports

There are 3 villages in the Santaishan area. All three are farming villages:

1. Han Chinese village
2. Jingpo village
3. De’ang village

The Jinghpaw and De’ang are ethnic minority groups. Populations of both of these ethnic groups also live in Myanmar (Burma), in larger numbers than the groups found in China. The Han Chinese have the highest living standards of the three groups, so there are less cultural roadblocks to development for them.

Photos & video from this training:

• De’Ang Village Training Slideshow
• Buying Fruits for De’Ang Village Training
• HIV/AIDS Training by a Single Lightbulb

De’ang Village Statistics

The De’Ang ethnic group in Yunnan Province, near the Myanmar border, is the smallest of ethnic minority groups in this part of China. Large numbers of De’ang can be found in Myanmar (Burma) but only small numbers of them remain in China. They have not mixed with the local Han Chinese population and way of life in modern China as well as other ethnic minority groups have.

There are 78 households in this De’ang village, totaling 388 people, of which there are 168 males and 220 females; 46 of these are children (age 0-12 years). The main crop grown here is sugarcane and it is grown for trade, while the people also do subsistence farming of fruits and vegetables. The village is very remote, due largely to the 27 km dirt mountain road (in particularly poor condition) leading to it. It is this road that is both a blessing and a curse for this village.

The reason why this village doesn’t grow fruit and vegetables for sale in neighbouring towns is that transportation costs make their produce too expensive to be competitive. Sugarcane, however, can be collected for sale in very large quantities before transport, so it does make a feasible crop for this village. However, the villagers complain that it sells for a very low price and they get taken advantage of because the transportation operators and buyers know they have few other options for sale. The villagers also complain that their children have to walk almost the entire 27 km to school, board there for the school week, and then come home for the weekend, thus creating a difficult situation for both the children and the parents.

There is a positive ramification that comes from this road–one that might be harder for the village to recognize, but should not be discounted. Our local partners report that of the sex workers who frequent their HIV health and information centre in Mangshi town, up to 50% are from the De’ang ethnic group. But this particular De’ang village reports that there is no HIV/AIDS in the village, and despite the poverty in this village (and this is the poorest village we have worked in yet), none of the women from the village have moved to the city as sex workers. The road has contributed towards keeping this village insular and isolated. The villagers all want a road and see the lack thereof as a hurdle to development, so it is only a matter of time before the road gets built. I can only hope that the village will be prepared to deal with the dangers that convenient access to the city will provide, by that time.