Virtual China '98

Authors: Philbert Fan and Gary Fisher

Date of Writing: 26 April 1998

Type of Writing: Interview with Older Men from Village

As we were riding through this pleasant village called Lou Gan Li we interviewed some village elders who knew a lot about the village and its history. We wanted to know how old the village was and what special features the village possessed. The village elders informed us that the village was famous because of a gate-like structure at the entrance to the village. The gate was famous because of the writing and that it held the village name written in large characters. This village is governed by two mayors which jointly make the important decisions in the village. Their decision is final! The main occupation of most the villagers is farming. The children go to school and in their spare time they help their parents farm. The amount of land owned by the villagers (about 20 acres) compared to the amount of people in the village (400 people) seemed relatively small. The village has been around for over 800 years and has seen many, many changes during that time. However, they have farmed the same land that we saw today…which is a remarkable feat!

Authors: Danielle McGrath and Erin Yeh

Date of Writing: 26 April 1998

Type of Writing: From the Perspective of an 8-year-old Village Girl

Hi, I’m a girl that lives in a village in southern China called Lou Gan Li. I am eight years old this year. This has been a very unusual day for me. I was playing with my brothers and sisters and all of a sudden these foreigners came peddling through our village. They were all in red shirts and had bright colored bikes. They were also wearing big hard colorful hats on their head. My grandfather was talking to them, and those people asked him what that big bamboo pipe had inside. My brothers and sisters and I started following these two people around. They didn’t really talk to us, but they just turned around and stared at us a couple of times. Also, I noticed how complicated their shoes were compared to mine. They kept on saying that our village had too many bugs and spider webs. Personally, I think that they kind of intruded on us but they were nice people anyway. They kept on taking pictures of our water buffalo and our grandparents. I had a wonderful time meeting these new foreigners, and I would be happy to introduce them to our village even more next time they visited!