Telling the story of my motivation for making the film scares me. Because my motivations inevitably touch on trauma. These traumas include the disconnect between the people I grew up with, the negativity of my upbringing, and even a hatred of certain behaviors. All of these negative factors led to a complete disconnect from the land.
After the age of 4 (1998), I spent most of my life in the city. The dominant culture taught me that the city was superior to the countryside. Agriculture was outdated, vulgar, basic, uneducated, unintelligent, and worthless. I loathed the countryside when I visited my relatives on Chinese New Year holidays. Gradually, the symbolic return to the village was made more burdensome by a new kind of hideousness - rural pollution. Plastic, metal, concrete, fabric wrapped in dirt, waste, blood and saliva. Bit by bit they come, until one day they fester and cook, and the smell in the air is enough to make you go blind. I hated the small businesses around the village, too. Cottage leather shoes, cheap chemical fiber winter coats (which give you electricity every time you take them off), boxes and boxes of instant noodles, all displayed in dilapidated concrete houses. Public transportation can't reach the inner parts of the village, and the traders will yell, pull, curse, scream, and sometimes fight to get a customer. It was a scene I would see every year when I returned to my hometown.
Looking back, I can understand how the economic model tore apart social relations and implanted the fear of hunger deep inside the hearts of once simple people. The fear and desire for wealth made them ugly and made the countryside ugly. Decades of industrial agriculture have profoundly affected the Yudong Plain, changing its landscape; the arrival of cheap cement has changed the shape of houses; cheap goods and the pressure to survive have changed people's hearts; garbage has changed the rivers and the wind.
In 2020 I moved to France to attend school. Here I had the chance, by accident, to visit some villages and farms and ended up living in an eco-neighborhood. Eating the true flavor of organic vegetables here, I would exclaim that this is the taste of my childhood, and sometimes the sweet evening breeze would recall the feelings of my childhood summers at my grandma's house. It's amazing that I grew up in a small city in China, but I feel nostalgic about my childhood in the French countryside. There's a popular story on the internet that says, “Why do modern people want to go home to farm when they are under pressure at work? Because the crops in the fields don't call in the middle of the night to scold people.'' I think this seemingly playful paragraph actually reflects our nostalgia. We don't know where our hometown is, but we yearn for it, because it is innocent, warm, tolerant, and flavorful. I made this documentary because I want to find this hometown.
In addition, the philosophy of “harmony between human and nature” behind eco-agriculture is a way out for me when facing climate change and social problems. In France, I read books related to organic agriculture, and I also grow vegetables in shared gardens, but I know very little about the current situation of eco-agriculture in China. I believe that there are many Chinese farmers who are practicing the wisdom passed down from our long history, and this documentary is a valuable opportunity for me to learn from the farmers and share their vision of the future.
After the filming: I feel that I have found my hometown, I felt where my roots are planted. I hope to pass on this opportunity to have a connection with the land and innocence to more people through this series.
A travers nos recherches, nous observons une tendance, tant en France qu'en Chine, à un relatif « retour à la terre ». Toutefois, cette dynamique reste encore marginale par rapport au modèle dominant de l'agriculture intensive. La similitude des défis et des tendances néo-rurales en France et en Chine mettent en lumière la mondialisation des questions écologiques.
Que nous enseignent ces parcours de retour à la terre des paysans chinois ? Comment cette sagesse agricole peut-elle être perçue comme un exutoire pour nos sociétés actuelles ?
Avec une population de 1,5 milliard d'habitants, la question de la sécurité alimentaire en Chine est préoccupante. En raison de sa taille, la Chine est responsable d'un tiers des émissions mondiales de gaz à effet de serre. Compte tenu de la contribution importante de l'agriculture industrielle aux émissions mondiales de gaz à effet de serre (30 %), il est pertinent de s'interroger sur la capacité de la Chine à assurer sa sécurité alimentaire tout en respectant les limites environnementales.
Au-delà du lien climatique, l’agriculture durable en Chine est intimement régie par un contexte sociétal qui se doit de comprendre. Dans les années 80, la Chine était un pays essentiellement agricole, mais avec les réformes économiques et le développement de l'agriculture industrielle, les villes sont progressivement devenues un symbole de modernité. L’exode rural a provoqué une perte des traditions qui s’observe par un rejet de l’identité paysanne et la disparition progressive des variétés anciennes. Cependant, au cours de la dernière décennie, le mode de vie urbain a révélé ses limites, que ce soit en termes économique, environnemental ou social. L'accroissement des inégalités, l'augmentation du chômage et la dégradation de l'environnement remettent en cause le sens et la durabilité de ce mode de vie urbain. La culture du « lying down » qui se répand dans la jeunesse chinoise témoigne de ce malaise.
La Chine : Un retour à la terre souhaite construire de nouveaux imaginaires pour cette génération. En s’inspirant d’histoires réelles, nous espérons faire naître chez le spectateur un questionnement sur l’identité paysanne, notre attachement à la campagne, aux traditions et questionner l'interconnexion de nos comportements avec les conséquences écologiques. Plus catégoriquement, nous souhaitons inspirer davantage de personnes à envisager qu’un retour à la campagne, à la terre est possible.