Said Hamad Musa

 Phd student at Xinjiang University

As a Pakistani student studying in China, I’ve been living in China for more than two years. My initial understanding of China was mainly learned through some Pakistani news reports. What I saw and heard was that China’s economy is developing rapidly.

A country with strong economic strength, China often develops cooperation with Pakistan in agriculture, electricity and other aspects. We are sibling -states. Therefore, I felt that China was a mysterious country with a long history of civilization. It attracted me to go to China and feel the different civilizations and customs. When successfully applying for an international student in a Chinese university, I was very excited. Before new semester, I took leave of my friends and relatives and came to China.

After arriving in China for the first time, the high buildings in China shocked me. After gradually adapting to the pace and habits of life in China, I fell in love with China and I plan to stay in China after graduation.

In the past two years, what impressed me most is that China has built a well-off society to help the poor and alleviate poverty. It is a great project that benefits all ethnic groups in China. The whole country is actively carrying out the work of helping the poor and alleviating poverty.

As a Muslim, I’m very interested in the development of Chinese Muslims in the poverty alleviation. I use this issue as a topic selection for my graduation thesis. It is of great significance to research this topic which not only let us know the conditions of Chinese Muslims in poverty alleviation, but also summarize China’s advanced experience and practices in the poverty alleviation.

Research on poverty alleviation of China makes more people in the world understanding China. China’s poverty alleviation cause is a great livelihood project which is worth learning from all countries in the world.

Based on my own interest, I started to collect and find relevant information about China’s poverty alleviation which helped my research writing. In order to grasp the first-hand information of my thesis, my tutor helped me a lot and instructed me how to collect and find the information. My mentor suggested that I needed to go to the relevant places to conduct field research for real and reliable information. Communicating with local people, especially Muslims, who are the poverty alleviation targets, it’s useful for my research.

After living and studying in China in the past two years, my Chinese skill has improved greatly. I’ve mastered basic Chinese greetings and polite expressions and made many Chinese classmates and friends. They are very enthusiastic and take good care of me. They also support and help me a lot in this project.

So I invited some Chinese classmates who have close relationship with me to do a field survey. It also made me have deeper understanding of impoverished areas in China and enhance my friendship with Chinese Muslims.

We interviewed Muslims at a farm around our school. After a long journey, we successfully arrived at this farm. The farm manager happened to be there. I greeted the farm manager with our Muslim expression. The farm manager was happy to help us with this investigation after knowing our intentions.

My first question to the manager is that how does he view the people’s livelihood project of poverty alleviation in China. He answered me with a smile:” Of course I know it. This is a major livelihood project for a well-off society in our country. It is a very important measure for people’s good life and we all happy for it. My second question is that has he ever participated in local poverty alleviation work? The manager said, “As a Muslim in China, I’m willing to participate in our country’s project of benefiting people.

My farm has more than 300 cattle, 500 sheep and some poultry. The scale of my farm is growing with the support of the poverty alleviation policies in China. Nowadays, the scale of my farm has become larger and I'm slightly richer than before. I’m also actively responding to the country’s call for targeted poverty alleviation.

I discussed with our village secretary how to promote the employment of our village labor force. Finally, I employed some Muslims with difficult family conditions work at my farm. In addition, I also applied to the local government for preferential policies for targeted poverty alleviation and received strong supports from the local government.

They also hope that I can drive the surrounding Muslims to achieve poverty alleviation and live a good life as soon as possible. After nearly two years of development, the income of the Muslims in my farm has increased and their living conditions have also improved. They have reached the national standard for poverty alleviation. Now, the lives of Muslims have been greatly improved. Thanks to the Party and the country for their care of Muslims.

Moreover, I also become a member of the national poverty alleviation project. The poverty alleviation project not only improves the income of poor families, but also provides them with technical training. Therefore, I contacted local highly skilled technician to teach us all the skills training in livestock breeding, meat production and processing.

It made everyone in my farm really masters a type of technology to overcome poverty and achieve prosperity.”

At the same time, we also interviewed with other Muslims about the living conditions of Muslims in different villages. From this interview, I collected valuable materials and my research thesis was basically completed after a period of data collation and thesis writing. In the end, we have come to the conclusion that China’s poverty alleviation project of building a well-off society has allowed Chinese Muslims to live a happy life.