Two Foreigners Appointed River Chiefs in Kecheng

By Zhao Zhenglin, Jin Ping, Jiang Ying



Two Foreigners Appointed River Chiefs in Kecheng

By Zhao Zhenglin, Jin Ping, Jiang Ying

古代东方教育家孔子是汤姆与拉德万斯卡心中的偶像。Ancient Chinese educator Confucius is an oriental idol of Tom and Radwanska.

The first time Fu Rongxian, a resident of Mapeng Village of Quzhou City, saw the two young foreigners, he mistook them as tourists. They rode electric bicycles into the village. Each had a long-handled net and tried to get floating flotsam out of the village river.

Fu soon knew he was mistaken. They each carried a backpack with Chinese characters indicating the River Chief. They spent a long time getting the floating rubbish out of the river. Fu wondered what they were doing and how they could be river chiefs, but he didn’t speak English.

Villagers gossiped about the two unexpected visitors and soon they learned from a villager working in the town government that the two young foreigners were English teachers at White Cloud School. The town government had appointed both of them as a river chief in charge of Mapeng Village section and Jingyan Village section of the Shiliang Stream respectively.

River chiefs are a new phenomenon in the province’s comprehensive water projects. Across the province, government officials are appointed river chiefs for local sections of a certain river and they are personally responsible for the river sections under their watch. Tom and Radwanska are river chiefs at the grassroots level.

Shiliang Stream is a local tributary that empties into Qu River. The Mapeng Village section under Radwanska’s watch is well taken of. The village itself is tidy and clean. The stream is flanked by trees and a paved footpath. The stream water is clean. Only occasionally some vegetable leaves float down. Villagers are in the habit of washing in the stream.

Jiang Yifeng, the CPC chief of Shiliang Town, first hit upon the idea of appointing the two foreigners as local river chiefs. In November 2015, Shiliang Town held an entertainment to publicize the clean-river cam-paign. Tom danced at the show on behalf of the school. After the show, Jiang approached Tom and tentatively asked if Tom would be willing to act as a river chief. The novel idea sounded puzzling to Tom. A colleague explained. Tom gladly accepted. “I am from northwestern UK where rivers are clean. I am willing to do my bit for protecting rivers in China.”

汤姆和拉德万斯卡受聘河长。Tom and Radwanska are engaged as River Chiefs.

Tom talked to Radwanska about the river chief idea. She was willing too. She came from the west of Poland where people are conscious of environment.

So Tom and Radwanska became river chiefs. It is a no-pay job and they need to patrol their respective sections twice a month. If they don’t do it well, inspectors will go after them. They come to the town first. They pick up the tool bags and ride the electric bikes provided to them by the government to the sections under their watch and begin to work.

Over the past few months, they have inspected the river sections on weekends. Each patrol takes more than 2 hours. The town is about 10 kilometers from the school where they teach. This is the major problem they need to conquer.

The villagers love them. Radwanska says that villagers are friendly. Whenever they come, villagers generously give them oranges to eat.

拉德万斯卡在巡河途中巧遇学生傅佳怡（上）。傅佳怡邀请两位老师到家里坐坐，并热情地递上自己家种的橘子（中）。拉德万斯卡兴奋地在橘子堆前摆起造型（下）。Radwanska and Rom and their student Fu Jiayi at Fu’s home village

Fu Jiayi, a student at White Cloud School, comments that the two teachers are great. They run a tight schedule at school and in their spare time they coach students in shows in English.

Since the two foreign chiefs began to inspect the river section regularly, the villagers have become sharply aware of their own responsibility for keeping the river clean. Many have stopped dumping things into the river. Some take it upon themselves to taking flotsam out.

Out of curiosity, Fu Rongxian has watched the two foreigner river chiefs closely and graded their performance. “They are great,”comments Fu.”They are conscientious and work hard. I give them A for their work.”