Planting the Answer to Youth on the Land in Huaxi Village - Full Record of 2024 GBF Labor Education Practice | GBF

Release time：2025-05-16    

ISF GBF  May 16^th 2025 18:25  Shanghai

From May 10^th to 11^th 2025, 2024 GBF students, holding reverence toward land and yearning for labor, stepped on the hopeful field in Huaxi Village and started the two-day journey of labor education practice. This activity is not only a hands-on farming experience but also an exploring dialogue that integrates youth, land, tradition and the contemporary age, which at the same time arouses students’ deep thinking about personal growth and national identity.

Fudan International School of Finance

Shanghai-Huaxi Operational Education Practice

In the exhibition hall, we understood the power of labor

The first stop of the labor education practice was the “Socialism Enriching Huaxi Exhibition Hall”. In the hall, the development trajectory of Huaxi Village is outlined through old picture, material objects and data in the time axis, evolving from the poor village full of saline-alkali soil in the 1960s, to the metallurgical plant and textile mill built on the basis of the “Huaxi Spirit” after the reform and opening up, and to the transformational ecological agriculture and cultural tourism industry in the new era. The yellowish work point account books, rusty farm tools and intellectual machinery models put together in the showcase witnessed the transformation from the way of “pushing by hand and carrying by shoulder” to technology promoting agriculture. The story of Huaxi Village is a vivid footnote of miracles created by labor and more a vibrant epitome of the process of rural reform in China.

Students visiting the exhibition hall

In the food factory, we tasted the sweetness and saltiness of labor

After a short break, the students came to Huaxi Food Brewery Plant. The moment they walked in, the journey of labor officially began. The students made Horseshoe Crisp (Mati Su) in person, giving their whole attention to each step of kneading, weighing, filling and compacting. When the golden, crispy Mati Su was taken out of the over, its sweet smell filling their mouths, the students felt a great sense of sweetness brought by their own labor.

Students making Mati Su

Going upwards to the top floor of Huaxi Food Brewery Plant, the students had a deep understanding of a special type of soy sauce produced in Huaxi Village, ice oil. Produced with a united craft, the soy sauce needs over three years of airing and fermenting and eventually forms a layer of salt crystal on the surface that looks like ice, which is where its name “ice oil” comes from. During the visit, the students gathered around the brewing vat and personally tried to fish out the salt crystal floating in the vat to feel its unique texture.

Students visiting the production of “ice oil”

At the exhibition symposium, we developed a new cognition of labor

At night, the students moved from the practice field of the food factory to a symposium to share their brand new feelings about labor. Also attending the symposium were Ms. Li Zhou, Deputy Director of Huaxi Village Committee and Deputy Party Secretary of Huaxi Industry Group, and Mr. Shaochun Shen, Vice General Manager of Huaxi Rural Vitalization Training Center.

At the symposium, the students expressed that they had simply considered labor as physical efforts before coming to Huaxi Village, but after making Mati Su and seeing the airing of “ice oil” in person, they had come to understand that labor required skills and patience and that each product was a crystallization of wisdom. Student Jiahao Shen pointed out that labor did not create significance uniqueness to individuals. But rather, through this activity, he got in touch with the life style of Huaxi villagers in the last century and was touched by the unique significance the time had granted labor. Shijie Zhang held that labor was an essential part of life and what people do as humans, and that each kind of labor meant the way we humans optimized resource allocation efficiency in the time and society of the day. Student Shuyang Zhang believed that we needed to learn to do all kinds of labor and make labor the primary need in our life, which in turn allowed us to applaud ourselves in labor and realize the returning of the essence of labor. Student Zhen Liu concluded that either in study or in labor we all needed to be down to earth and match with our own nature, finding our own happiness in the labor process.

Students participating in the symposium

In the field, we were “new farmers” with a love for labor

On the morning of the next day, the students came to the field and turned into “new farmers”. They used their hands that were familiar with pens to hold shovels, dig holes, spread manure, sow seeds, water plants and so on... Everyone did their own division of labor and cooperated, burying the seeds in the soil to breed new hope. When seeing the field they personally cultivated, the students could almost see the tender seedlings breaking through the soil and feel a joy of harvest.

Students working in the field

In the National Defense Education Hall,

we achieved sublimation of the value of labor education

In the Tianhua National Defense Education Hall, the physical exhibits that had witnessed history silently displayed a truth: the security of the nation has never been inseparable from the diligence and resilience of the people. The over 500 thousand Chairman Mao badges and precious exhibits vividly demonstrated the glorious life journey of the great man. In the realistic area of tunnel warfare, the simulated dim tunnel brought the students back to the years of anti-Japanese war. These profound memories of patriotism granted labor grander significance. Labor is not just individual cultivation, but more a practical action with the aim of protecting the motherland and construct the homeland; and the consciousness of national defense is no longer a distant abstract concept, but an actual responsibility rooted in every action used to sow seeds and every bit of hard work and sweat.

Students visiting the national defense education hall

In the former residence of the old party secretary,

we touched the roots of Huaxi Village’s development

The last stop of this labor education was the former residence of the old Party Secretary Renbao Wu. Quite “unconventional” in Huaxi Village filled with foreign-style houses and villas, the house looked old and was equipped with simple furniture. Renbao Wu had lived here for all his life. Standing in front of the former residence of the old party secretary and touching the mottled walls, the students seemed to be able to feel his deep love for the land. 

Students visiting the former residence of the old party secretary

Two days passed by quietly and rapidly. On the land of Huaxi Village, what we had planted were not just seeds, but a deep understanding of the value of labor, the ardent responsibility for rural vitalization and fearless exploration into the future life. This land of wonder had taught us that labor was the most simple bottom color of youth and struggle the most touching melody of the time. Carrying what we had learned here, we would continue to cultivate in the vast field of life and water the flower of dream with the sweat of youth, illuminating the spirit of labor in the long river of times and composing a magnificent chapter of our own generation.