Zheng Fang/Wen

When I read 'Nothing Small in the Village', I often think of the village where I grew up.

Why do eggs need to wear "seat belts"? Why did the villagers bring twenty pounds of wine to the village committee? Why travel thousands of miles to Jinjiang, Fujian to 'catch people'? How could a persistent 'nail household' emerge from a cornfield? These questions may seem trivial and even somewhat unexpected. But behind every question lies a grand proposition: how does a national policy reach its final implementation site? As a researcher in the field of public policy, I am familiar with the narrative about policies in textbooks - from formulation to implementation, from the top to the grassroots, policies are depicted as a rational transmission chain. And 'No Small Thing in the Village' presents to everyone with the clumsiest and most honest strokes: the last centimeter of this chain at the end is not 'transmission', but a prolonged translation and negotiation. In the process of reading, I can even imagine the scene of me communicating with my parents who are far away in the countryside now.

The reason why eggs need to wear "seat belts" is that in order for agricultural products to enter the market, they must comply with the entire set of modern circulation rules, including standards, packaging, and traceability. For a village accustomed to self production and self sales, regardless of weight, this is a completely unfamiliar language. What the village secretary needs to do is not just sell eggs, but also convey this language to the villagers, translating these words bit by bit into words that the villagers can understand and believe. The moment when institutional language enters rural society is never a natural arrival, but rather friction, hesitation, correction, and compromise. There is a triple distance between the original intention and implementation of policies: information, trust, and translation - the destination of an invoice, the calculation of a medical insurance account, and the harvest of an experimental field. The grand narrative of 'good policies' can only truly take root after such daily polishing.

From the perspective of public policy research, this book provides an extremely scarce sample - one that is at least not very successful. The author did not avoid the impossible things, but wrote them down in their original form. In the field of public policy, we have seen too many successful cases, and the most authentic texture of policies lies precisely in those failed experiments - because the cost of policy trial and error is ultimately borne by the group with the least bargaining power. A village secretary who is willing to write a candid "collection of mistakes" about their experiences requires not only courage, but also a responsible attitude towards the countryside and farmers. This honesty has made this book surpass the "compilation of advanced deeds" and become a truly valuable record of grassroots governance.

As a student who came out of the countryside, what I saw in this book were also individuals who were overwhelmed by grand narratives - or rather, my parents, my neighbors. They don't understand the terminology of policies, but they know who truly cares for them. The sincerity of the common people is precisely the most difficult part of this book - they may not have understood what "precision poverty alleviation" and "rural revitalization" mean in their entire lives, but they are willing to entrust their trust, the best things, and all their wealth to a "bookkeeper" who "manages everything". The success of poverty alleviation is not only due to financial investment and policy tools, but also to the trust between officials and fellow villagers who are sincerely entrusted with their lives.

There are never small things in the village. Every small thing seems to be a microcosm of a family whose policies have not yet been implemented to the end, and it is a specific scene where the country and individuals meet. The grand narrative of the times ultimately falls on these 'small things'; And it is precisely these small things that constitute the resilience and foundation of Chinese rural society. The policies of the country are like a long spring rain, and everyone in the village - whether it is the resident cadres or those who have spent their whole lives guarding the land - is walking forward step by step in this rain. Someone is responsible for bringing rain into the village, and someone is responsible for rooting in the rain. During the process, there were hesitations, stumbling, failures, as well as the clumsy yet solemn joy of fastening the egg to the seat belt.

Slowly move, we will eventually arrive.

(The author is a teacher from Jilin University of Arts)

(Author Zheng Fang)