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Families Relocated in Name of Progress
Nine-year-old Sun Yuanyuan burst into tears Thursday at the joy of seeing her new neighbourhood in Shanghai.
Sun was one of 639 people from Yunyang County in the Chongqing Municipality in the area of the Three Gorges Dam who are being relocated to Shanghai because of the massive hydroelectric project. The group arrived at Shanghai's Chongming Island Thursday morning.
Sun and her family had lunch in the home of their new neighbour in the shadow of their new home in Chongming -- a two-storey house equipped with electricity, water, bathroom, gas, cooking utensils, bowls, rice, red peppers and other daily necessities.
"She has so happy,'' said Sun's mother, Ku Weibi. "This is her first meal in Chongming.''
In the past month, Sun has witnessed the demolition of her former home in the town of Nanxi in Yunyang County, life in a temporary tent city and the tearful departure of 150 families from their hometowns on August 13.
During the past four days, Sun and her neighbours travelled nearly 2,000 kilometres down the Yangtze River.
Some 30,000 people in Yunyang are expected to move to other provinces before the area is flooded to make the world's biggest dam around 2009.
Meanwhile, 6,700 people in Chongqing will be relocated to Jiangsu, Guangdong and other coastal provinces before September 1.
Sun and her family received two welcomes -- the first at Nanmen Port where they disembarked in Chongming, and the second in front of their new home in the village of Miaoxi in the western part of Chongming.
Thursday morning outside Nanmen Port, which was festooned with colour flags and banners for the occasion, hundreds of Chongming residents gathered to welcome their new neighbours.
Inside the port, local officials, headed by Lu Ming, deputy magistrate of Shanghai's Chongming County, waited for more than half an hour to greet the families. Many volunteers were on hand to help the families with their luggage.
When the boat "Jiangyu Nine" was finally anchored at the port at 6:48 Thursday morning, its decks were filled with white-haired grandparents, middle-aged couples and anxious youth ready to settle into their new homes.
A children's orchestra began to play as the group disembarked.
"You are welcome, you are home," said Lu Ming, deputy magistrate of Chongming County, before leading the Yunyang group out of the port.
From the Noah's Ark of the "Jiangyu Nine" came a procession that defied description. Each person was allowed to carry only a certain amount of personal belongings with them. The Yunyang newcomers carried bamboo baskets, paper packages, dogs, frogs, pigeons, saplings and seedlings to transplant their life and lifestyle to Shanghai.
After a brief ceremony, all 639 people were transported to new homes in 48 villages in Chongming.
Sun Yuanyuan had already been enrolled in the local primary school when she reached her new home. A new school bag was waiting for her inside her new home. Sun will soon join her Chongming peers at a new school, for which her parents need not pay for the first semester.
Sun's parents carried many crop seeds and plants with them from their former residence. Each member of the group was given a mu of land (0.6 hectare), the average amount of land a farmer in Chongming.
"We will plant the seeds here in our new homeland," said Sun's mother. "And we will share the fruits with the Chongming people who are so kind to us."
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