Where Internet and poverty collide: Pony Ma's Genesis

While Alibaba' s Jack Ma was storming Wall St. with an unprecedented IPO punt, his competitor Tencent's Pony Ma, was doing something quite different.

Pony is president of the world's fourth largest internet firm. His team is persuading poor residents of Tongguan village, Guizhou Province in southwest China, to use Tencent' s social media app, WeChat, to communicate with the outside world and sell local specialties, ranging from mountain tea to organic rice through the Internet.

"We are building the first mobile Internet village in China," said Chen Yuanyuan, project manager of "Sending a Dream to the Countryside".

On the top of a mountain behind the village a new telecom transmission tower was installed by China Mobile, a partner of Tencent in the project.

Amid smell of pig manure,a grand ceremony was held on November 22 when Tencent announced the first WiFi network ever in a Chinese village. Thousands of villagers, the majority of them from the Dong ethnic minority, joined the celebration singing and dancing, curious children on their backs, and setting off firecrackers. A religious ritual was held. A village elder placed a pig' s head and a rooster's blood in front of paper cut-outs of ghosts and chanted to prevent the spirits from interrupting the Internet operation. It seemed to work.

"Who's got a smart phone here?" as Chen Yuanyuan asked the crowd at the ceremony. Only a few villagers raised their hands.

"So most of you do not have one? But in every Chinese city, almost everyone has got one...You want to see your sons and daughters who are working in cities? Let's WeChat. You want have your hand-made silverware sold to rich people in cities? Let's WeChat. You want to read the notice issued by the village management committee immediately? Let's WeChat..." Chen said.

This is an entirely philanthropic move to bring fortune and perhaps fame to the village. "Thank the Communist Party of China, and thank Tencent," said villager Wu Bangcan. "You have awakened a sleeping old village."

PREACHING INTERNET DOCTRINES

Smart phones were delivered to villagers in the following week by ZIT, another project partner. Fifty-six villagers were selected to take part in a training course arranged by Tencent. After they had basic Internet knowledge, an exam began. Questions included, "Do you think that everything on the Internet is fantastic?"; "Do you believe that you can see your family through the smart phone?", "Do you agree that one day you may democratically elect the village cadres through a phone poll?"; and so on.

One villager quit the training because he could not understand what the trainers said. Of seven illiterate women, five did not finished the exam, but attained good marks with the help of Tencent workers.

A total of 460 households in the village will be given smart phones, Guo Xianjie, a ZIT official said. Every villager is required to hand in 200 yuan as a guarantee. If they use the phone until May 31 next year, and do not use it for gambling or other mischief, the money will be refunded. China mobile has provided every villager with 1G free traffic flow per month for 20 months.

BLESSING ETHNIC CULTURE

In 2011, Chen first came up with the idea of using the Internet to revitalize Tongguan village, when she heard the villagers singing their polyphonic folk songs, "Kam Grand Choir". In 2009, UNESCO added Kam Grand Choir into the list of Oral and Non-material Heritage of Mankind. Tongguan village is one of a few places where ethnic Dong people still sing them.

The Dong, also know as the Gaem or Kam-Sui, are one of China' s 55 ethnic minorities, with a population of three million. They have their own language, traditional clothes and religion, and are especially famous for their unique singing and dancing.

Chen was saddened to discover that the Kam Grand Choir is fading rapidly, as young people leave the village to work in cities, and suggested Tencent build a Kam Grand Choir museum in the village.

The museum, still under construction, is not only a stage for villagers to practicing sing and scholars to do research, but also a platform equipped with cutting-age information technology to connect the village with the rest of the world, spreading their song and helping the villagers sell their products online.

"In this way the poor can become rich, and young people can be lured back to the village to work and sing happily," Chen said.

UNCERTAIN FUTURE

A lot of people are suspicious of the program. "We are Han Chinese. We abandoned our own traditions many years ago. We wear Western suits, often think in Western ways. Isn't it ridiculous for us to protect Dong ethnic minority culture? " said He Jie, a Tencent project manager.

Some argue that the Internet will accelerate the decline of Kam Grand Choir, as it injects too many modern elements into the tradition. Some are worried that when Tencent finally withdraws from the village, the villagers will not be able to operate the museum by themselves and they will make a mess of the cyber business. Some fear that tourism will spoil the tranquility of the small village. Some say the "mobile Internet village" will inevitably lapse in anarchy, with chaotic conditions reminiscent of the sci-fi movie "Jurassic Park".

"Shall we be remembered by history as heroes, or cursed by the future as sinners?" said Du Xiaomin, an architect from Beijing who came to help re-design the village.

Chen Yuanyuan believes she has considered all the difficulties, and the good seeds of Tongguan will be sown in villages throughout China.

"We are spearheading management of a village by Internet, and encouraging young people return; we help poor farmers earn money in a dignified way; we are rebuilding rural memories with new technology," she said.

During a religious ritual, an old man told her that the place where the Internet ceremony took place was the site of a demolished temple. "My bigger dream is to renovate the temple for the villagers one day, and not on the Internet," Chen said.