It's a milestone most people in the country can appreciate. Thursday marks the fifth year since the middle route of China's South-to-North Water Diversion Project started transferring water from the Yangtze River to thirsty regions in the central and northern parts of the country. Nearly 340,000 migrants moved far from their hometowns to take part in the long, tedious project.
Sixty-five-year-old Zhao Jiufu is the Party Secretary of Huanghu New District of Tuanfeng County, Hubei province. Nine years ago, he left his hometown in the mountains of Yuzui County, Hubei province, and settled more than 600 kilometers away in Tuanfeng County, far from where his family lived for generations.
Zhao is one of the 340,000 migrants who helped set up China's middle route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project. Now he's quite used to life in his new home.
"I was the county's Party Secretary. It was really hard to persuade villagers to move. They said if I wouldn't move, they wouldn't either. It took us 10 years to finish all the migration work," said Zhao.
Yang Xiuhua, Zhao's wife, said: "I didn't want to move here at all. It meant I had to leave my parents, my brothers and sisters and even my own daughters. I really miss them."
China's water diversion project was designed to take water from the Yangtze River to quench dry areas in the north. The middle route begins at the Danjiangkou Reservoir between Hubei and Henan Provinces and the water runs across Henan and Hebei provinces through a man-made channel before reaching Tianjin and Beijing.
The 3,723 villagers of Yuzui County were ordered to relocate to Tuanfeng county, as water in the reservoir rose and their low-lying homes and lands were submerged.
Moving away from the place where his family had lived for generations, Zhao Jiufu still gets homesick from time to time. But he admits that life has never been better. He believes his fellow villagers feel the same.
When Zhao and his fellow villagers arrived in Tuanfeng county, they found that hundreds of new villas had already been built for them. Tap water, gas, and electricity were ready in their new houses. After they settled down, they wanted to use the farmland to grow what they wanted, and their children no longer needed to climb mountains or walk for hours to go to school because a new kindergarten and a school are near their homes.
"We used to drink spring water in the mountains. Now we drink tap water. We have everything here. Our lives are no different from those of urban people. I don't feel like a rural farmer anymore," said Zhao.
Cui Fahong, another migrant said: "There are more job opportunities here. We transferred our land to bigger farms and let them grow. Then both my husband and I found other jobs nearby. It's good to be here."
The older most people get, the more they miss home. Zhao said they now go back to visit his relatives just once a year, which usually involves a full day of travel. He hopes that people in Beijing will remember the sacrifices he and others made so that the capital can have clean drinking water.