Footprints

​This March, fifty-nine year-old Zhang Yuqing has embarked on his second five-year term as a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference or CPPCC—China’s top political advisory body. Also a professor and university president, Zhang has worked in the educational sector and the underdeveloped Jiangxi Province in central China for decades. Since he first became a national political advisor in 2018, he has drawn on his rich experience and expertise to make a series of proposals about educational reform and rural development.

Every year at the two sessions, female legislators and political advisors actively take part in the discussion of national affairs along with their male counterparts. Many of them work at the grassroots level and come to the two sessions with their own motions and proposals based on years of grassroots work. Today, we’ll get to know one of them, Huang Liping, who’s a member of this year’s National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

​Thirty-eight-year-old Lu Man is a farmer who runs a turkey business in east China’s Jiangsu Province. Determined, resourceful and warm-hearted, this university-educated agri-businesswoman has beaten enormous odds in order to succeed in her adventures in rural China. Having served as a deputy to the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislature, since 2018, Lu Man has drawn on her rich experience in agriculture and rural areas to make proposals for the government to develop the vast countryside.

Liu Cixin is one of China’s most prominent science fiction writers, who received the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel for his work The Three Body Problem, making him the first Asian writer to have won the award. As a writer, a sci-fi fan and a faithful family man, Liu Cixin has been carefully separating all three aspects of his life, while taking his readers on a journey through the vastness of space, the complexity of time, and the depth of human consciousness.

​Feng Dazhong, an artist from northeast China’s Liaoning Province, has been focusing on painting tigers for around six decades. The tigers outlined by his brush are leisurely, lively and sometimes lonely, becoming models for art students to imitate and widely known for being printed on calendars and stamps.

Fan Yang and Jia Guangjian are both renowned painters of traditional Chinese painting. For decades, Fan has portrayed major historical events and changes in the country, such as the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. Meanwhile, Jia has used his outstanding painting skills to capture the natural beauty of China and turn it into fascinating flower-and-bird paintings.

Zheng Xiaoying is one of the most renowned Chinese conductors. At 93 years old, she still takes an active role in orchestra and music. For decades, she has devoted herself to enriching Chinese people's cultural life as well as telling the world Chinese stories through music.

Liu Lanfang, based in northwest China’s Gansu Province, is a craftswoman of Xiangbao or traditional Chinese sachets, which are handmade silk pouches stuffed with herbal medicines and embroidered with colorful patterns. With more than four decades’ experience in this craftsmanship, Liu says she has seen an increasing number of customers eager to buy this auspicious and decorative item in the run-up to and during this year’s Spring Festival. But why would this be? Join this edition of Footprints to find out.

Spring Festival, arguably the single most important festival in China. Millions of people take the opportunity to travel back to their hometowns, reuniting with their parents, children and old friends. In China, this travel boom is called the Spring Festival travel rush, also known as the largest annual human migration on earth. This homebound journey isn’t always easy for everyone. But luckily, there’re always kind strangers who’re willing to help.

Doctors Cao Hehuai and Ke Dongfeng are a couple working at a village clinic in central China’s Jiangxi Province. In recent weeks, they and their small clinic, which is only staffed by them, have become a lifeline for about 3,000 villagers amid a surge of COVID-19 cases. With their three decades of experience working as village doctors, the pair have been doing well in their battle against the pandemic, and thanks to them, the villagers have weathered an initial wave of infections well. While bracing for a new wave of cases during the upcoming Spring Festival holiday at the end of January, Dr. Cao says rural China “will soon see the light at the end of the tunnel” in the fight against COVID-19.