They help harvest grains, feed the animals, and fetch water from the wells. The Ma family, like most of the poor peasants in the region, depends on human labor, sometimes with the help of a donkey or a small ox. Harvesting is done with a scythe. Only the “rich” have tractors, which cost about six thousand yuan. Some families supplement their income by harvesting fa cai, a hairy grass that grows wild on the steppes of northwest China. In addition to representing this grass, the two characters used to write fa cai can also mean “to make one’s fortune.” “Get rich” is a greeting the Chinese use at the lunar New Year. In the 1990s, this pun lead to fa cai’s popularity as garnish for soups and salads in China’s cities. Though fa cai has no nutritional value, the demand for—and price of—the grass soared. Peasants travel hundreds of miles to perform the backbreaking work of harvesting the dry black grass, which is a little like algae but as fine as hair. The amount of money they make for this exhausting labor is tiny by the standards of urban China.
