'Road of love' gives village better access

Husband makes wife's wish come true from courting days of having to walk through mud

Visitors to Gufo village in the township of Zhaoya in Luxian county, Sichuan province, are often surprised to find that its road is paved with gravel and sand instead of concrete, but the villagers are extremely satisfied.

The new surface is a vast improvement on the dirt road they had to endure until recently. They no longer have to brave the dust when it is dry and sunny or the mud and puddles when it rains.

The new gravel road is all down to the love that a middle-aged man named Chen Shuming had for his wife, Ma Xueping, and the villagers call it the "road of love".

Chen, a 44-year-old native of the village, worked as an apprentice in a bakery making cakes in nearby Luzhou in the early 1990s. Ma, a native of Rongyou township, in Hejiang county, worked as a saleswoman.

They fell in love.

When Ma would visit Chen at his home on a rainy day, he used to meet her at the intersection of the dirt road and a paved road, carrying a pair of rubber boots so she could walk through the mud.

The first time she walked the dirt road, Ma lamented the state of the road and expressed the wish to build a better road one day if they had the money.

"I did not expect him to take my words seriously more than 20 years later," Ma said.

The year before they were married in 1994, Chen and Ma started a family-run business making cakes in Hejiang. Over the years the business has expanded, and it now has 50 employees.

The dirt road remained in its usual state until last November, when Chen began to rebuild it. He had no construction experience and thought it would cost around 80,000 yuan ($13,000) to build a road covered with gravel and sand. His estimate proved to be wildly inaccurate.

"The gravel and sand alone cost him more than 200,000 yuan," said Si Dequan, a villager.

Si and the other villagers were impressed by Chen's efforts. He was a stranger to many of them, having left the village many years ago, but the idea of a new road appealed to them. They worked for him for free, unloading gravel and sand and paving the dirt road.

"Chen lived in an inn in Zhaoya for more than half a month in order to oversee the construction project," said Si Deming, another villager.

The new road is 2.5 kilometers long and 4.5 meters wide, allowing access to trucks.

Some villagers had not rebuilt their homes for several decades because they could not transport bricks, tiles or cement to the village.

"Now trucks can reach the village, even on a rainy day," Si Deming said.

Located where the Zhaoya, Yunjin and Taifu townships meet, the road also benefits the people of those communities.

Chen's decision to build the road was motivated by the desire to repay the kindness of his wife. Chen came from a humble background and only attended primary school. Ma's family was better off, and she graduated from a senior high school. But she married him anyway.

He also wanted to repay the kindness shown by his fellow villagers.

In 1993, Chen's father was seriously ill. The dirt road was inaccessible to any cars. The villagers rallied round and used a jampan, a sedan chair made out of bamboo, to carry Chen's father to the town clinic more than 10 km away.

"My father died. But I cherish the memory of the favor performed by my fellow villagers," Chen said.

huangzhiling@chinadaily.com.cn