By JIJI JIMO
Agriculture Correspondent
KAIFENG (China Daily Show) – In the remote village of Huyang, Henan, chicken farmer Zhao Chunlu is starting to feel even more isolated than usual.
“It started about a month ago,” says Zhao. “All of a sudden, the weekly telegrams stopped coming. My pager stopped beeping. And the mountainous road to my chicken farm was flooded by persons unknown.”
With no TV, one book – a guide to chicken farming, written in the 1920s – and only an iffy dial-up connection, Zhao normally relies on occasional mahjong games with a nearby hermit to stay connected.
But even the hermit has stopped making the two-hour journey by horseback to shoot the breeze.
Alone in his yard, Zhao gazes thoughtfully at a pristine biohazard warning, hanging from a nearby tree.
“You know, I really get the impression that people are now avoiding me for some reason,” he admits.
“Maybe it’s something I did?” he continues. “I mean, I got drunk at a dinner a few weeks back and said a few things. But I assumed everyone else was blind drunk too, and wouldn’t remember.”
Avian flu has come to this secluded Henan village – the first visitor in months. In the past week, the only callers at Chen’s backwoods farm have been the migratory birds that carry the virus.
Conscious of his work-life balance, Zhao says he washes four times a day to get rid of the omnipresent smell of chickens.
“You don’t smell chickens, do you? If I smell of chickens, say something,” Zhao pleads. “I don’t want people to stop visiting because they don’t like the smell of chickens.”
At these words, Zhao directs a loving gaze at the hens pecking by his feet.
“Well, looks like it’s just me and the birds now. But that’s how I like it,” he declares. “They won’t abandon me… and I won’t abandon them.
“Unless, of course, they contract some kind of airborne virus – then I’ll cut their throats and dump them in the nearest river.”
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