Qin Yuefei, a Yale Graduate Working as a Village Official

By Yang Mei

Qin Yuefei, a Yale Graduate Working as a Village Official

By Yang Mei

Service

W hen introducing himself, Qin Yuefei is always mentioning two important things in his life—that is, in 2010, he completed his undergraduate courses in Yale University, and in the next year, he worked as a village official in the rural area of Hunan Province. It may occur to some people that there was once a news story on a “Yale-graduate village official” who was a role model of Chinese youth. Now, he is 30.

Five or six years ago, among his group of Chinese graduates from Yale University, several of them had settled down in Beijing and found a job either in an investment organization or a consulting firm. Qin Yuefei didn’t want to take up a nine-to-five job and live for nothing as a white-collar worker. Instead, he wanted to make a contribution to changing people’s life. Majoring in political science and economics, he believed that he could definitely find his role in the field of public service in China.

Initially, Qin Yuefei launched a non-profit organization called Sunshine Book House with some friends that had graduated from Harvard University, so as to develop the rural education in Gansu Province. Meanwhile, he heard of an organizational program—that is, working as a village official in response to the country’s “Collegegraduate Village Official” policy.Qin Yuefei considered it an ideal opportunity to fulfil his ambition,which could provide him with an optimistic outlook. Although many people just saw the poor rural conditions and low salary of the job,in Qin Yuefei’s eyes, compared with his great vision, those negative aspects were negligible. Thus, he signed up for it.

Qin Yuefei’s mother attached great importance to his education, and Qin Yuefei began to learn English when he was only two. According to the plot of a traditional success story, after he was granted a full scholarship from Yale University and got a job offer at Wall Street after graduation, the story should have come to a good end. Yet,in Qin Yuefei’s mind, coming back to one’s birthplace and helping a local community were the real exciting choice.

In 2011, he was selected as the assistant director to work at Hejiashan Village of Hejia County in Hengshan,Hunan Province, with a term of three years and the monthly pay of RMB 1450 yuan, but the post was not included in the staffing quotas of the national civil servants and without any social insurance.

On the next morning he took office,Qin Yuefei got up and took a bath as usual, which puzzled his colleagues in the township government—how come this guy took a bath in the morning?Qin Yuefei had no idea of the usual practice of a villager, neither did he understand the local Hengshan dialect. Later, he changed his habit of taking a bath in the morning, and he started to wear his letter-printed T-shirt inside out and changed his short boots out for a pair of rubbersoled “liberation shoes.”

服 务

秦玥飞介绍自己时总说两件事：2010年从耶鲁大学本科毕业，2011年到湖南农村当大学生村官。有的人会想起来，以前新闻是报道过一个“耶鲁村官”，中国的榜样青年。如今，他30岁了。

五六年前，他们这拨中国学生从耶鲁毕业，好几个人陆续到北京落脚工作，进了投资机构或咨询公司。秦玥飞不想过朝九晚五、庸庸碌碌的白领生活。他希望能做出改变人们生活的贡献。他本科修的是政治学和经济学两个专业，他相信在中国的公共服务领域里，总能找到一个属于他的位置。

秦玥飞一面跟哈佛的朋友发起一个叫“阳光书屋”的公益组织，在甘肃农村发展教育，一面又听说了另一种有组织性的做法：响应国家的“大学生村官”政策，去农村做村官。秦玥飞觉得这个岗位完全符合他的理想，也有上升前景。很多人只看到农村条件差、村官工资低，他觉得这些跟一个更远大的愿景相比都没什么。他报了名。

秦玥飞的妈妈重视教育，秦玥飞两岁就让他开始学英语。按一套传统的成功故事，秦玥飞在高中拿到耶鲁全额奖学金，大学毕业后得到一份华尔街上的工作，故事就到头了。但秦玥飞说，能再回到出生之地，帮助一个群体，那才是激励人心的结局。

2011年他被选派去湖南衡山贺家乡贺家山村做村主任助理，任期3年，月薪1450元，没有公务员编制，没有社会保险。

上任第二天一早，秦玥飞起来洗了澡。乡政府的人都稀奇起来，怎么早上洗澡？他不了解农村，又听不懂衡山话。后来，他不在早上洗澡了，把有英文印花的T恤里翻外地穿了，短靴也换成解放鞋。

他在村里一会给人搭手提个篮子，一会又帮人修热水器，99%的工夫都在做“好人好事”。

难 处

到贺家山村两个月后，秦玥飞告诉乡党委副书记陈希军，他可以在外面找企业筹款，看村里有什么需要建的。陈希军想了一阵，说田里需要修条水渠。

秦玥飞一个人跑了几趟北京，让留学圈里的朋友牵线，找到几个企业和个人赞助。他凑了15万元回来，村里集体投票，通过了修水渠的方案。

二组一个姓刘的组员没到场投票，还到处跟组里人说，别答应修，保证大家不吃亏。其他组或者跟了份子钱请工人，或者自己人出力，在田埂上作业施工。水渠挖好，用水泥硬化了，前后都要完工了，只差中间二组那段还是烂泥杂草。

秦玥飞还没碰到过潜规则，以前看网上新闻说得有模有样，他不信，哪里来那么多潜规则。现在村干部明白告诉他，刘组员就是想要钱。

太阳升在天上，文明人知道那是地球在自转，原始人只看见一个火球出来，根本没有天体的意识。秦玥飞有一次想到这么个比方。他要服务的人不懂什么是公共服务，他们过往的生活经验告诉他们，这是别人要做政绩，要完成上级任务，他们也就以为能据此讨价还价。

Qin Yuefei could often be found in the village carrying a basket or fixing a water heater for the villagers. Most of the time, you would see him lending out a helping hand.

Unspoken Rules

After working in Hejiashan Village for two months, Qin Yuefei told Chen Xijun, the deputy secretary of the township party committee, that he could help raise funds from some enterprises for any construction work in the village. After thinking for a while, Chen Xijun said that a ditch needed to be built in the fields.

Qin Yuefei made several trips to Beijing, and with the aid of other overseas returnees in his friends,circle, he successfully found a sponsorship from some enterprises and individuals. He came back to the village with a total amount of RMB 150,000 yuan, and after a collective vote by the villagers, the proposal to build a ditch was approved.

However, one member in the second group surnamed Liu didn’t show up in the voting, and he told his group not to take action, guaranteeing them that they would profit by following his suggestion, while the team members in other groups had either done a whip-round to pay for the labourers or contributed their own efforts in the job execution. After the digging and cement curing, the ditch was nearly completed, except for one section, still covered by mud and weeds, which was supposed to be done by the second group.

Qin Yuefei had never encountered an unspoken rule before. Although having heard about it from the news,he never believed it. A village cadre told him explicitly that Liu was just after money.

When the sun rises, a civilized person knows that the earth is rotating, but in the eyes of a primitive man, it is nothing but a fireball coming out of the ground, as he lacks the knowledge of celestial bodies. This was an analogy that Qin Yuefei came up with. The people that he served didn’t understand what public service was, and according to their past life experience, the ditch incident was due to someone’s desire in making achievements and fulfilling a task assigned by his or her superiors;therefore, they thought that they could take it as their bargaining chip.

Qin Yuefei was honored one of the ten China 's inspirational role models in 2016秦玥飞获得2016年度感 动中国人物奖

Over the subsequent week, Qin Yuefei went to Liu’s home time and again, trying to build good relations with him. Qin Yuefei addressed him as Uncle Liu immediately after entering his home, and he also sent him several packs of cigarettes as a gift, and after which, he began to talk about the ditch in a polite manner. After several twists and turns, the ditch was finally completed the next January.

之后的一个星期里，秦玥飞反复上刘家要先搞好关系。他进门叫刘伯伯，送了几包烟，又客客气气提起水渠的事。多番波折后，水渠终于在第二年1月完工。

乡政府青年公务员汤飞龙觉得，得亏秦玥飞是耶鲁毕业的。村官没编制，他在村里又是外来人，除了跑腿打字，哪能找来资源去推进什么项目，资源都是从秦玥飞自己学历上来的。秦玥飞也承认，耶鲁毕业生的身份给他帮了大忙。不光是人脉资源，就是拿出来讲故事，情节也强。

2012年末，湖南电视台报道了秦玥飞服务农村的事迹。2013年5月4日，湖南省政府授予秦玥飞个人一等功奖章。10月13日，央视评选全国十大“最美村官”，秦玥飞被评上了。颁奖词介绍他是“喝洋墨水，走乡土路，身怀梦想，脚踏实地的耶鲁哥”，宣传片反复特写着他脚上穿的解放鞋，水渠成了秦玥飞“最大的政绩”。

也有记者想知道秦玥飞受西方教育，会怎么处理农村里传统人情和现代规则的冲突。秦玥飞举出刘组员的事。他说他去嘘寒问暖，去多了，对方也就不好意思刁难了。“这样的例子就是又兼顾人情，又维持一种议事原则。”

三明治

秦玥飞的第二个村官任期到2017年8月也要满了。整个湖南省已经不再招募新村官，也不再续聘老村官。要是不在农村做事，他最容易想到的就是进咨询公司。他的几个老同学这5年里在公司的职位层级都升上去，工资可观，买了房，结了婚，赡养着父母。

Qin Yuefei(right) and his partners are recording a propaganda film for "Serve for China ", calling on more youths to participate in the rural work.秦玥飞（右）与小伙伴们为黑土麦田公益组织录制宣传片，号召更多年轻学子加入乡村建设。

Tang Feilong, a young civil servant in the township government,thought that if Qin Yuefei wasn’t a Yale graduate, it would have been impossible for him to promote any project at all. Although a village official, he wasn’t a member of the national civil servants, and to the villagers, he was an outsider;therefore, except for some legwork and paperwork, there were no resources for him to utilize. All the resources were from his own educational background. Even Qin Yuefei himself admitted that his identity as a Yale graduate was of great help. With such an identity,not to mention a good interpersonal network, the fact itself would be a fascinating story to tell.

At the end of 2012, Hunan TV covered Qin Yuefei’s story of working in a village. On May 4, 2013, Qin Yuefei was awarded an Order of Merit by the Hunan Provincial Government,and on October 13th, he was selected as one of the top-ten “Most Beautiful Village Officials”, with a citation saying, “Brother Yale, an overseas returnee walking on a country road,aiming high while keeping both feet on the ground.” Moreover, his advertising video repeatedly showed a close-up of his liberation shoes,and the ditch became his biggest achievement.

One journalist asked Qin Yuefei how he would deal with the conflict between the traditional code of conduct in the village and the rules in modern society, since he was educated in the west. Qin Yuefei gave the example of Mr. Liu in reply. He said that he always went to visit Liu’s home and showed him great concern,and after some visits, Liu found it embarrassing to create difficulties any more. “Such an example has not only taken human feelings into account,but also maintained the rules of procedure.” Said Qin Yuefei.

Dilemma

The second term of Qin Yuefei’s appointment as a village official expires in August of 2017. However,the whole Hunan Province has stopped recruiting new village officials, and neither will they extend the contracts of incumbent village officials. In case he no longer works in a village, a consulting firm would be the first idea that came to Qin Yuefei’s mind. Over the past five years, several of his classmates have been promoted to a high position in their companies,earning a good salary, and all of them have gotten married and bought apartments—and they are supporting their parents as well.

Looking back on his own course of life, he feels it is surreal. “Was it real?Or was it just a fantasy of an idealist who had never considered what reality was? I don’t believe it was a fantasy, as I have spent half a decade living in it.”

Qin Yuefei said that one night in February of 2014, he felt extremely perplexed about his future. With only one percent battery left on hismobile, he surfed Humans of New York—a website posting the innermost thoughts and feelings of strangers on a daily basis.That night, the “stranger” was Barack Obama. Qin Yuefei read out Obama’s words to me in English, “I got beat once… I was in the minority party, I wasn’t getting a lot done, and I was away from my family… I was fifty years old, and I’d invested a lot of time and effort into something that didn’t seem to be working.”

“If you’re worrying about yourself—if you’re thinking:‘Am I succeeding? Am I in the right position? Am I being appreciated?’—then you’re going to end up feeling frustrated and stuck. But if you can keep on your hard work, you’ll always have a path.”

In June of 2014, Qin Yuefei registered a non-profit organization named “Sunrise Operation Rural Service Innovation Centre” in the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and later,he proposed another initiative called “Serve for China.” He wanted to recruit a group of college students to start a business in different villages, while lobbying some enterprises into participating in this public welfare undertaking. In his plan,the enterprises would cover the expenses of the students, and the students, after getting familiar with the local condition,could come up with an idea to guide the villagers to become rich. Moreover, when those students came back to the city after fulfilling the task, they would have priority to get a job in those enterprises.

“China is the biggest market for the public welfare undertaking. For the future of China, it is important to know how to utilize the country’s accumulated wealth over the past two decades and divert them to where they are needed most.”Said Qin Yuefei.

Qin Yuefei had contacted some non-profit organizations,and one of them agreed to donate 5000 solar street lights to him. At the beginning of May, when I visited Baiyun village where Qin Yuefei worked, he showed me a soil ditch where I saw a few poles standing upright on the ground. With fist-like balls on the top, the poles were no higher than my ankles. It turned out that these poles were floor-mounted solar lights.Qin Yuefei said, “They had a romantic idea—that is, to light up the way home for the villagers. But how could they make it happen?” The lights were designed to stay close to the ground so that people could only see a small circle of hazy light. The village committee reminded him that those solar lights, if mounted along the roads, might be stolen some day; therefore,Qin Yuefei distributed them to each household so that they could stick the light poles in their own yards.

他回想自己的整条人生轨迹，有种超现实的感觉。“它到底是不是实在的？或者是一个根本没有考虑过现实的理想主义者的幻想。但是我不愿意相信是梦幻，因为我用了半个十年去活这场梦。”

他说2014年2月的一个晚上，那是他觉得特别迷茫的时候，手机上的电量只有1%，他用来上了那家叫“Humans of New York”的网站。这家网站每天发布一个陌生人的自白。那天的自白者是奥巴马。秦玥飞把那段英文念给我听：“我大败过一场……我在一个少数派里，我没能做成很多事，我又远离着家庭……我50岁了，我在一个看起来没成效的事情里投入巨大的时间精力……”

“如果你只是担心你自己，如果你想的是，我是不是在往成功路上去？我是不是在一个对的位子上？我的价值得没得到赏识？那么你最后只能觉得无奈，进退两难。但只要你接着干下去，你总会摸索出一条路的。”

2014年6月，秦玥飞在民政部注册一家名为“朝阳行动乡村服务创新中心”的公益组织，之后又慢慢构想出一个“黑土麦田乡村创客计划”。他要招募一批大学生到各地农村去创业，同时游说企业参与这项公益事业。他需要企业赞助大学生的工资，让大学生了解农村的情况后，找出一个创业的点子，带领农民致富。在他们完成任务回到城市的时候，企业又能优先录用他们为员工。

秦玥飞说：“中国是公益事业最大的市场。如何使用中国以往这二十年所累积的财富，引导这些钱到该用的地方去，这对中国的前途很重要。”

他也联系过几家公益组织，其中一家答应捐赠给他5000盏太阳能路灯。2016年5月初，我在白云的时候，他指给我看一条土沟，沟里有几根到脚踝那么高的小杆子，杆头上结着拳头似的小球——原来就是一支支插地式的太阳能灯。“他们想得很浪漫，说要照亮村民回家的路。这个要怎么照亮呢？”设计者把光源设计得离地面很近，人们只能看见一小圈模糊的光。村委说灯放在路上会被人偷走。秦玥飞把灯分给各家各户，让他们插在自家院子里。

尾声

Epilogue

This young man doesn’t have too much to rely on, and he couldn’t have completed any project without the help and resources from others. He has nothing but time, a silver tongue, a Graduation Certificate from Yale, and a national title of honor.

When I took a flight to Hengshan County with Qin Yuefei, I brought the Great Gatsby with me. He flipped through the book and read out a paragraph at the start of it—“Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in this world have not had the advantages that you have had.”

At the end of May of 2016,Qin Yuefei was on the train heading to Hengshan County again. When a steward came to check the wall-mounted luggage rack, a suitcase protruded beyond the edge of the rack.The steward declared that the suitcase must be taken down for security reasons. One woman promised that she would bring it down in a second. Yet, after the steward left, she changed her mind, saying that the suitcase was too heavy for her to carry.After a few moments of silence,Qin Yuefei stood up and said,“Let me help you with it.” The woman thanked him. Qin Yuefei knew that if he didn’t do it, the woman wouldn’t have taken down the suitcase herself, and other passengers who were capable might not lend her a helping hand, and no one knew when the steward would be back,so the train would move on with hidden dangers. ◆

(Chen Xijun and Tang Feilong in the story are pseudonyms.)

(From China and World Periodical Digest, January 2017.Translation:Zhu Yaguang)

这是个一无所有的年轻人。他做的任何项目都要调动别人的资源，得到别人的资助。他有的只是时间，嘴皮子，一个名校学历，一个通报给全国的荣誉称号。

我跟着秦玥飞去衡山的时候，带了一本《了不起的盖茨比》。他拿去翻了翻，然后把开头那段英文念出来：“当你想要批评别人的时候，你要记得，这个世界上不是所有人都有跟你一样的优势。”

2016年5月底，秦玥飞坐在火车上，等着车再一次开往衡山。乘务员来检查车顶行李架，有只箱子凸了出来。乘务员声明不安全，得拿下来。一个女人说，我等一下拿。乘务员走了。女人却说，我拿不动。没人出声，两三秒后，秦玥飞站起来：“我帮你拿吧。”女人道了谢。秦玥飞相信她自己不会去拿行李的，其他有力气的人也不会拿，管理者不知道什么时候才会再来，而这列火车会一直带着这个问题开下去。

（文中“陈希军”“汤飞龙”为化名）◆

（摘自《中外文 摘》2017年第1期）

耶鲁村官秦玥飞

文/扬眉