Returning Home

As the weather improved, the water level in the stricken areas dropped significantly, encouraging those who had left to return to fix their damaged residences.

In Zhangjia Village, Luozhen Town, households began disposing of the silt deposited in the houses and drying furniture and clothes in the sun. Relief workers, in camouflage uniforms, remained behind to help clean away the damage and the garbage. The village’s cement road, about 1,000 meters long and four meters wide, was quickly cleared of obstructions. The fields began to take on their original appearance, crisscrossed by footpaths. But the seedlings of cereal crops were suffocated in a thick brown sludge.

In Luozhen Town, because the villages are located at different altitudes, residents were allowed to return home at different times. But, since the water level had dropped to lower than one meter, many who could not wait simply rolled up their trousers and waded through the waters to get back to their ordinary life.

It proved difficult. The damage caused by the flood was devastating. Business establishments, including electrical appliance shops, supermarkets, and restaurants, had all been soaked in water for several days. According to one furnishings shop owner, her loss totaled 10,000 yuan, equivalent to half a year’s turnover. Very few villagers had property insurance. Nonetheless, they displayed remarkable optimism. “Life should move on. As long as we’re doing well, money can be earned back sooner or later,” one resident said.

Around noon, kitchen smoke swirled from the chimneys, carrying with it the fragrance of cooking. Life began to approach something normal once more.  

Where the Heart Is

For those who chose to stay when the flood hit, it was a dangerous undertaking, since waters could swell at any time. House foundations were likely not solid enough to resist the water for very long; food and drinking supplies provided by the government were far from sufficient; and there was the threat of being bitten by poisonous snakes which had sought sanctuary on house roofs and in trees. Despite these dangers, some residents chose to remain with their homes, ignoring the pleas of relief workers. “All we could do was try our best to make sure they were supplied with water and food,” one relief worker said.

The incident reveals Chinese people’s sentimental attachment to their homes and their land. The German thinker Count Hermann Keyserling once wrote a century ago in his book The Travel Diary of a Philosopher, “There is no other peasantry in the world which gives such an impression of absolute genuineness and of belonging so much to the soil.” Even floodwaters can’t change that.