Next to the railway line that runs between Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, andKunming in Yunnan province - one of the most famous third front construction projects- is a graveyard filled with more than 1,000 workers who died during construction. InChongqing, the 71 soldiers killed while building the Baitao base are buried in a nearbycemetery. Judging by the place names carved on each tombstone, not one of them wasborn in the town.
“Only the offspring of workers, peasants and other members of the proletariatwho could be true revolutionaries were allowed to join the third front construction.
Participation was a sign of a good family background,” said retired engineer Pan, whorecalled that at the time he was “ambitious and eager to join in the national defenseconstruction and China’s nuclear industry”.
“Suffering from years of war, you can’t imagine how much people loved their countryin that era,” said the elderly man, who was hit in the leg by shrapnel during the War ofResistance Against Japanese Aggression (1937-1945). “We thought that if we had nuclearweapons, no one would invade our country.”
The war many people were preparing for never happened, though. In the 1970s,relations between China and the United States thawed and the power of the Soviet Uniongrew weaker, diminishing fears of a nuclear attack.
The national strategy was refocused on economic development, and most of thedefense technologies in the “third front construction” were transferred to civilian use.
Although many projects floundered after the withdrawal of State funds, the “third front”
campaign is credited with laying the foundations of the large-scale development strategylaunched in the country’s western regions in 2000.
“If it wasn’t for the nuclear plant (being constructed here), Baitao would never havebeen developed and nobody would have come here,” said Pan. “But I didn’t just dedicatemy life to this town, I also dedicated my children’s lives.”
Due to the poor standard of schools in the “third front” area, the large majority of theoffspring of those who moved west in the 1960s and 1970s were unable to receive a goodeducation - even though their parents were experts in their fields.
Pan, who now works for the fertilizer plant in the former military base, said neitherof his sons went to college. He is now hoping his grandchildren will be able to escape thetown, which has a population of about 31,000.
Beijing-born Shen Guoliang, 51, whose parents were both nuclear scientists at thebase and witnessed the first atomic bomb test in the desert of Xinjiang Uygur autonomousregion in 1964, has lived in Baitao since he was 9 years old and says he is ready to leave.
“Nobody wants to stay in a poor area but how can we go back (to the capital)?” hesaid. “Our hukou and apartment are here.”
Others, like Chen Bingzhang, say they made even greater sacrifices for their country.
Before arriving in Baitao, the nuclear technician was assigned to Gansu, where heand 30 colleagues were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation after an accident in 1969.
Seven people died, and although Chen Bingzhang survived, his son was born blind.
“My superior came to shake our hands and called us heroes of China’s nuclearindustry,” he said proudly, wearing his traditional blue Mao-style suit. “He said the Partyand the people would never forget us.”
Chen Bingzhang and his family now live on his pension of just 1,000 yuan a month.
“I only hope the Party and the people will never forget us, like I was told,” the retiredtechnician added.
June 22, 2010
Misconceptions about contraception
Fifty years after introduction, the Pill has yet to make a mark.
Jiang Xueqing in Beijing reports.
Two weeks after getting an exciting new job with a global business group, Lin Yanpingdiscovered she was pregnant. For a woman already juggling a career in publicrelations with being a mother to her 4-year-old son, the news was far from welcome.
Although the 30-year-old admitted she was not using any form of contraception, shefelt certain her long-trusted system of “calculating when it is safe” would protect her.
She was wrong, and doctors quickly pointed out that menstrual cycles can be greatlyaffected at times of stress - such as the kind caused by starting a new job.
Lin had an abortion, blaming the episode on “bad luck”. Yet, even today she prefers totrust in her calculations than in the combined oral contraceptive pill, commonly referredto as the Pill.
In the 50 years since the United States’ Food and Drug Administration approved itsrelease, the Pill has become one of the most popular forms of contraception in the West.
However, medical experts say it has yet to make its mark in China, where the public stillholds many widespread misconceptions.
“Taking the Pill is against nature and I’m afraid it will harm my health,” said Lin.
“Besides, the Pill has to be taken every day. It’s too troublesome and I’d definitely forget.”
Lin’s attitude is not uncommon. According to a 2009 online survey by the ChinaPopulation Communication Center, 67 percent of the 8,501 respondents worry about thePill’s side effects.
Other concerns included the hassle of remembering to take it every day (17 percent)and its effectiveness (14 percent).
As a result, just 1.7 percent of all married Chinese women aged 15 to 49 who usecontraception take the Pill, said Wu Shangchun, a research fellow at the National ResearchInstitute for Family Planning. The number stands in sharp contrast to the 41 percentreported in the Netherlands, 29 percent in Britain and 18 percent in the US.
Chinese instead rely on other contraceptive methods, such as condoms, sterilizationand intrauterine devices (IUD), which are placed in the uterus.
The annual Health Statistics Yearbook shows almost 8 million women received IUDsin 2008, with another 1.8 million undergoing vasoligation or tubal ligation operations tohave their “tubes tied”.