Muli Tibetan Autonomous County, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in southwestern Sichuan Province, is located at the junction of the Qinghai-Tibet and Yunnan-Guizhou plateaus, with a total area of 13,200 square kilometers, a population of some 120,000 people and a relative altitude of 4,000 meters.
Neither phone line nor highway can reach the county's 29 outlying townships, which are, fortunately, linked by 15 postal paths. Mail on the mountain routes that stretch over some 3,500 kilometers is usually delivered on the backs of pack animals.
Leading his mule, 40-year-old mailman Wang Shunyou, of the Miao ethnic group, has been trekking the rugged mail paths for the last 20 years.
"My father was one of Muli's first mailmen. He did the job for 30 years. As his eldest son, I took over his duties when he retired in 1985," recalled Wang, sitting on a wooden stool in his sparsely furnished room, smoking a pipe.
"This job is really tough," he said. "But when I put mail or parcels in the hands of those who have been waiting anxiously for their mail, it's worth the trouble."
Over the past two decades, Wang has delivered a yearly average of 8,400 newspapers, 330 magazines, 840 letters and 600 parcels. He spends 24 to 28 days out of every month on the road, alone. To date, he has trekked across an accumulated distance of 265,000 kilometers.
Wang's two favorite pastimes are drinking and singing folk songs. But, there's a good reason why he indulges in these two activities.
"It's a little better during the day when I have to rush to my delivery destinations," Wang said. "However, when night falls, the whole world is still except for the wailing of the wind and shrill cries of wild animals. Lying in a tent pitched deep in mountain forests, I feel all the more lonely. There is nobody around to chat with, so after feeding the horses, I drink and sing to kill the solitude."
Drinking alone in the tent, he is often moved to tears when he thinks of his wife and children.
Wang's wife, Han Sa, 46, although in delicate health herself, single-handedly raises their two children, keeps house and does the farm work. Last June, Han fell ill and was hospitalized. Wang stayed with her for three days in the hospital. Those three days turned out to be the longest time husband and wife had ever spent together.
Xiaoying, Wang's daughter, dropped out of school when she was 12 to help lighten her mother's workload. "Dad works hard. I don't blame him," Xiaoying said.
Being a mountain mailman isn't a highly-paid position. Wang's monthly earnings are a little over 800 yuan (US$96.4).
Wang is used to living life in the rough, battling minus 10-degree chills when crossing over the 4,800-meter-high Cha'erwa Mountain, and surviving scorching 40-degree heat when descending into the Yalong river valley.
Eating zanba (roasted qingke barley flour) to stave off hunger, chomping on snow to quench his thirst, and drinking wine to keep warm, physically, Wang has paid a high price. He suffers from chronic headaches, rheumatic disease, and stomach and liver ailments.
In May 1995, in a place called Jiushijiudaoguai (Ninety-nine Turns), Wang was kicked in the stomach by the frightened mule. He fell to the ground in pain, and was almost knocked unconscious. What seemed like an eternity later, he got back to his feet and continued on his journey.
The following eight days were excruciating for Wang. He was in intolerable pain; he couldn't hold any food down, and survived on only water. Yet, he soldiered on to deliver all the mail in his bag. By the ninth day, when he was able to get medical attention, an X-ray showed that his intestines had been ruptured, and suppuration had set in his abdominal cavity.
His life was saved by an emergency operation, and it was at this time that the idea of quitting first crossed his mind.
He discussed it with his family but his father was opposed to his idea of quitting. The older Wang lectured: "In my day, it's much harder than what you're doing now, without the help of a horse or mule. But even then, I never thought of quitting."
That was enough to make Wang change his mind.
In the summer of 2001, floods and landslides blocked the road between the county town of Muli and Baidiao Township. For more than a month, the remote township had no contact with the outside world. But one rainy August evening, like a vision, a drenched and muddied Wang appeared in the evening haze to deliver a college admission notice to Hai Xuyan who had been waiting anxiously for news from the university.
Hai later learned that Wang had made a long detour and walked an unmarked mountain pass through the forest to make the delivery. "It's not easy for a girl from the mountains to be admitted to college. If I had sent the notice late, that might have delayed her registration," Wang explained.
"It's Wang who changed my life, " said Hai, who is now studying political history and education at Xichang College in Sichuan.
Packed into Wang's bag every day are private letters, official documents and newspapers. "We learn about the central government's new policies by reading the papers," said Wang Derong, head of Baidiao Township.
"Without the mail routes, many grassroots governments in Muli would not be able to operate regularly," Li Hongwei, secretary of the autonomous county's Party committee, said.
When asked what his biggest wish is, Wang replied: "I hope that one day highways will connect every township in Muli with the rest of the country; then future mailmen won't have to lead a mule up a mountain."
(China.org.cn by Shao Da, June 15, 2005)
