The Disappeared Draft Oxen

When I was a child, we had to share many not-too-strenuous labors for the household, and herding cattle was one of them. The paddy fields of Hubei had to be plowed by draft oxen, but raising one ox per family was too extravagant. Because plowing work is limited and finished in a few days, several households usually jointly raised one draft ox, sharing it. The cooperating households divided up the monthly days for looking after the ox according to the amount of land each owned. The families that jointly raised an ox were usually also those with good relationships in the village, so raising cattle together also fostered bonds among villagers.

When I was small I worked as a cowherd and herded cattle. The oxen had broad backs, and bold boys like us all liked to climb up and sit on them. Draft oxen are gentle by nature; when their little master sat on their backs they rarely lost their temper, steadily carrying the child and walking slowly along the field ridges and riverbanks, grazing on grass by themselves. In the countryside, the bond between draft oxen and people is deep; oxen understand human feelings, and owners do not mistreat them. When there was grass in the fields the ox was led out to graze and let it eat its fill; in winter, when the grass in the fields withered, the ox was fed its fill with stored hay.

"Qingming falls with its rain, passers-by's hearts are broken on the road. May I ask where the wineshop is? The cowherd points afar at Apricot Blossom Village." And: "The cowherd rides the yellow ox, his song shakes the forest grove. He wants to catch the singing cicada, and suddenly stops and stands silent." Many ancient Chinese poems feature cowherds and draft oxen. More poetic cowherds were also skilled at playing the pastoral flute, but a mischievous cowherd like me had no patience to learn it. When I was little I liked to read novels while herding cattle, lying on the grass by the riverbank, leisurely crossing my legs and reading wuxia novels. Or I would leave the ox on the riverbank and go fishing or play in the river myself.

I don't know when it happened, but not a single draft ox was left in the village; I probably haven't seen a draft ox in my own village for twenty years. Now rural land is plowed by machines, and rice is harvested by machines too; most farm work no longer needs human labor. Occasionally I return to the village during the autumn harvest, and watching the combine harvesters busy ahead across the paddy fields while flocks of crows and magpies follow behind, pecking up the fallen grains — the oldest rural picture of human labor combined with draft oxen has been replaced by a new type of agriculture.

The summer before last I returned to my hometown and rode my bicycle along the mountain road to my grandmother's old house, which I hadn't visited in over twenty years. In those deep mountain forests I saw a herd of cattle I hadn't seen in ages, and I couldn't help feeling a surge of delight. But these cattle were no longer draft oxen; they were a herd raised by mountain farmers for human consumption. Thinking that this herd would eventually be sent to the slaughterhouse, someone like me, who had a deep bond with cattle since childhood, could not help feeling sad again.

We have gone through the transition from the most primitive agriculture combining human labor with domestic animals to mechanized modern agriculture. To be honest, although I also miss the days of herding cattle as a child, I do not wish to return to that era. Because when I was young, rural life had more than just the easy work like herding cattle; there was also the backbreaking labor of transplanting rice, harvesting rice, carrying rice, and plowing fields. Apart from plowing — which required both physical strength and high technical skill and was mainly done by the able-bodied men of the household — I did my share of all the other dirty and tiring work as a child.

Most farm work was extremely hard; because of the lifelong toil, rural people in the past did not live long on average. Those of us who lived through that life have no wish to go back. When we were children, the elders in our households most often said: "Study hard, become educated in the future, and once you leave the countryside you won't have to live this life facing the loess and bending your back to the sky."

We could never have imagined back then that today in the countryside one no longer has to make a living on the land facing the loess and bending one's back to the sky. Technology has liberated people from heavy physical labor, and this technological progress has brought many benefits to humankind. But what we even less expected is that in our lifetime we would experience another, more far-reaching technological revolution — the rise of artificial intelligence. Agricultural mechanization liberated farmers from heavy physical labor; artificial intelligence is influencing humankind in even broader domains, attempting to liberate people from a great deal of mental labor.

At the same time, however, many people worry that they, like those disappeared draft oxen, will lose their place of use, be eliminated by the times, and even face an existential crisis. I am an optimist, so I usually tend to think of things in a positive light. I believe that most repetitive mental labor, just like the farmer "facing the loess and bending his back to the sky" in the fields, ought to be replaced. In the course of natural evolution, human beings should seek a more comfortable way of survival and no longer waste precious life on repetitive work of little meaning.

The countryside once solved the employment problem of a huge population; by keeping people on the land, agriculture created inefficient employment but did not bring us a beautiful life. When I was a child, most people's living conditions were very harsh; meat was eaten only at festivals, many people worked themselves into a lifetime of illness, and traveling to faraway places was an unattainable luxury for most. Advances in agricultural technology have made farm work lighter; now one person can farm the land that used to require ten, and without being as exhausted.

With the development of the artificial intelligence and robotics industries, one can expect productivity to rise further, and most people's quality of life will improve rather than decline. Human beings have a strong ability to adapt to environmental change; new modes of distribution and survival will emerge, and new kinds of work suitable for us will arise. At the same time, new social currents will emerge, and people's inner spiritual world will change with the times; most people need not worry too much about survival. As the saying goes, when one reaches the mountain, there is a way; I believe in this philosophy and don't like to frown about the future.

Regardless of whether AI will replace the work I do today, I will continue as always to immerse myself in what I love. Reading, thinking, writing, exploring the unknown world — all of this still holds a powerful attraction for me. I am also learning new AI technology and using it to do my work better, but I will not give up systematic learning on that account. A person needs something they love to do so as not to be so bored and dull.