01Three Hours from Dunhuang, Bound for Where We Began

The sky over Dunhuang had barely lightened on the morning of October 3 when the Gobi 21 C Team boarded a bus and headed east out of the city, led by Huang Zhuo, Vice Dean of PKU NSD, Fan Lirong of the EMBA Center, and Shen Hong of Peking University's Institute of New Structural Economics. Beyond the windows the frontier slipped past in turn—the old relay post at Xuanquanzhi, the green sheet of Shuangta Reservoir, beneath whose water the site of the Tang-dynasty Yumen Pass lies sleeping. At the far end of the reservoir's canals waited the day's destination: Jinhe Village, Shuangta Township.

The three-hour drive was less a commute than a moving preview lesson. Ever since NSD students began running the Xuanzang's Road Gobi Challenge, the school's Gobi community has made a point of doing public-interest work in Guazhou whenever the race comes around—money and supplies at first, then support for schools—and it has kept at it for years. From 2025 the Gobi Club took the model a step further, toward what it calls "intellectual empowerment": each year it and the Organization Department of the Guazhou County Party Committee nominate one outstanding village Party secretary for NSD's rural revitalization program, the Village Head Workshop, and use that connection as a foothold for the long-term tracking of, and accompaniment to, a Guazhou village's development.

The approach comes down to three words: Train, Visit, Sell.

Train—bring Guazhou's people out. Village leaders are invited to the Village Head Workshop, where they study rural revitalization alongside counterparts from across the country and alumni entrepreneurs.

Visit—bring alumni in. The NSD Gobi Club organizes trips for faculty, students, alumni and their families to walk Guazhou's villages and move the classroom into the fields, so that they can see the county's landscape, its customs and the state of its rural development for themselves—and bring their own business experience to bear on a village's problems.

Sell—benefit farmers and Gobi runners alike. Drawing on the alumni network and consumer channels, the program helps a village's good products find buyers, so that farmers see real returns.

The day's itinerary fell under "Visit." The village was Jinhe. The man to be visited was Yang Shengxiang, Party branch secretary of the village and a member of the sixth cohort of the Village Head Workshop—nominated by the county's Organization Department and admitted after an interview with NSD's public-interest committee. The villagers call him the Goji Secretary.

02Into the Village, Headfirst into the World of Goji

The group entered the village at half past ten. Accompanied by officials from the county's Organization Department and the Shuangta Township People's Armed Forces Department, Secretary Yang took them straight into the world of goji: first the Jinhe goji industrial park, then the fresh-lock berry plant and the goji purée plant, and finally the fields themselves.

At the industrial park a promotional film left the team quiet for a long while. One shot showed Secretary Yang walking alone across bare ground in a sandstorm—wind driving sand over the Gobi, and in all that space nothing but the back of one man. That image did more than any briefing to fix Jinhe Village in everyone's memory, and to fix the Goji Secretary there with it.

Wind is written into the bones of this land. Guazhou is known as the world's wind bank, and a local ballad runs: No wind, and sand fills the yard; wind, and home disappears. Annual rainfall is under 50 millimetres, while evaporation is more than sixty times that figure. Yet the same wind and the same hard sun have made the Gobi a natural drying floor for goji, and the wide swing between day and night temperatures draws sugar and nutrients into the fruit, bit by bit. From holding their ground in the dust to growing an oasis out of saline-alkali soil, the people of Guazhou share one temperament: the harder the wind blows, the further they walk into it. That stubbornness is the same spirit as the line the Gobi has made its own—Dream, Action, Perseverance, Transcendence.

At the fresh-lock plant, varieties and techniques introduced in 2023 were holding the colour and flavour of the fresh fruit in place. In the purée workshop the group ran into Chen Hongbing, Party secretary of Shuangta Township, who was making a National Day inspection round and happily served as their product explainer for a while.

The last stop was the goji fields. October wind moved along the rows; the red fruit was already in storage, the green leaves still on the branches. The team stood on the raised paths between plots. Twenty years ago this ground was "white earth" that turned alkaline again after two waterings; now a channel of river water has been drawn across it and turned it into an oasis with no end in sight.

"Let's plant a couple of goji trees at Chengze Garden when we get back." Nobody was sure who said it first on the ridge, but everyone agreed at once—Guazhou goji growing on the PKU campus, rooted where one end meets the Gobi oasis and the other meets the founding purpose of NSD's public-interest work.

The happiest members of the party were the children. One of them was so excited that he announced a change of name on the spot: "Call me Goji Berry." The laughter ran on for a while.

03Roundtable: a PKU Classroom Comes to the Village Committee

Afterwards the NSD group sat down in the Jinhe Village committee meeting room with Secretary Yang and Chen Guangrui, head of the Shuangta Township People's Armed Forces Department, for an unusual kind of seminar.

Yang began with the village's history. Jinhe is a settlement of migrants, and its name promises what the place did not have—no gold, no river. What the first settlers wished for was a life that shone like gold and ran on like a river. Getting from saline-alkali land to a goji village took the whole village twenty years.

Team members weigh in: every industry is a way of seeing

In the discussion that followed, team members spoke in turn, each bringing the vantage point of their own sector to bear on Jinhe's problems.

Qin Rui, E24 — From seeing to connecting: making the Jinhe experience into a resource that can travel

"Even by Guangdong standards, this is a textbook case of rural revitalization," Qin said. But on brand and channel—on actually reaching the consumer—there is still a long, careful road of marketing to walk, and she offered to connect Jinhe with businesses in Guangdong. Jinhe's goji already ranks in the country's top tier, she said; the urgent task is to tell the story of the place properly and build a brand system people can recognize, so that "you can't find Guazhou goji" becomes "you look for Guazhou goji."

Wu Danni, E24 — Quality is the root; word of mouth is the road

"I used to think goji came from Ningxia. I had no idea Guazhou had a growing region this good." Starting from the consumer's side, Wu argued that a good product spreads through the last mile of one person telling another. Fresh-lock processing has made a start; deeper processing, traceability systems and a longer value chain are the next steps—turning a "good product" into a "good buy."

Fu Xiaochen, E24 — The field lesson is also a seed for the industry

Fu thanked Secretary Yang on behalf of the children in the group, who rarely get out into the fields and who that day saw the whole arc from field to finished product for the first time. She proposed building parent-and-child picking programs on the back of the industrial park, with children carrying their own little baskets and picking and keeping notes by hand: "It's good for the children, and it lifts the industry too."

From feeling to action: the faculty weigh in

Fan Lirong of the EMBA Center said she had visited a good many villages and found Jinhe's level of development rare. "Twenty years on one thing, and bringing everyone along to prosperity with it—that kind of commitment really moves you."

She also made a connection on the spot: an alumnus runs an organic restaurant business, and Jinhe's goji might reach a bigger table through it. Feeling is followed by action, and the alumni network is what gives "Sell" its staying power.

Shen Hong of Peking University's Institute of New Structural Economics said that although he had visited many districts and counties, this was his first time at village level. "My first association with Guazhou was always honeydew. Only today did I learn how representative its goji is." He suggested that cases like Jinhe be written up as cases that can travel—that work done at the edge of a field be entered into a library of replicable practice, to serve both as material for research on rural revitalization and as a model for the rest of the country.

Then came the most formal moment of the day. Fan Lirong presented Secretary Yang with a Gobi 21 commemorative cup on behalf of the team. Shen Hong gave him an album about the Yan Yuan campus and a bookmark from NSD Public Interest. And Huang Zhuo handed him the most particular gift of all: an offer of admission to the sixth cohort of the Village Head Workshop.

On October 22, the Goji Secretary will walk into Chengze Garden to join the Workshop's co-created learning. Behind that letter of admission lie the nomination of the Guazhou County Party Committee's Organization Department and the full support of Chengze Outdoors, the Gobi Club and the NSD Public Interest Committee. Rural revitalization: many hands, one purpose.

Huang Zhuo spoke last, closing this "practical class" with a summary: one secretary goes out, and a whole village is seen. The key to rural revitalization lies in industry, and the key to industry lies in the people who lead it. "Secretary Yang started from a few mu of land and dared to be the first to eat the crab; he created a demonstration effect. What is more remarkable is that Jinhe's goji did not stay at the low end—it moved quickly toward high-quality processing. The secretary's entry into the Village Head Workshop means two things: Jinhe's experience goes out to village secretaries across the country, and the country's good ideas come back to Jinhe."

04The Second Half of Charity Day

In the afternoon the convoy moved on: at Cave 25 of the Yulin Caves, the Gobi runners stood in silence before High Tang murals a thousand years old; at Gobi Spring, the C+ Glory Camp said their goodbyes—most of them had signed up for C+ mainly to be there when their A+ teammates crossed the line that evening. NSD teammates, looking out for one another.

The last stop of the day was a return visit to the melon farm in Shigong Village, Nancha Township. Shigong is the village paired with Gobi 20, and last year's melon purchases organized by the Gobi Club drew warm reviews. This year Jinhe's goji and Shigong's melons have been linked as a pair, the two leads in the Guazhou Local Specialties Festival launched by the NSD Gobi Club—a harvest rendezvous across two thousand kilometres, from Chengze Garden to Guazhou, now made real.

The day also pushed many people to think again about one thing: public-interest work is not simply charity. Handing someone a coat in a snowstorm and putting out the fire of the moment is one thing; what matters more is teaching someone to fish—addressing long-term problems from a position of equality, and leaving capability behind long after you have walked the road together.

Today the "Visit" happened, and the heart arrived with it. What comes next is "Sell": getting the good things that grow in Guazhou's soil out through the Gobi community's networks. That is the real second half of this story. Online purchasing for this year's Guazhou Local Specialties Festival, launched by the NSD Gobi Club for Gobi 21, is already open—Jinhe's fresh-lock goji and Shigong's Gobi honey melons. From industrial park to dinner table, from product to brand: this is the real second half.

From last year's melons to this year's goji, the fruit has changed; the people on the ridge have not. Train one person, visit one village, sell one measure of sweetness—once goodwill becomes a relay, a good harvest stops depending on any single year's luck and becomes an appointment worth keeping, year after year. What public-interest work yields was never confined to one season.

Related link: Guazhou Local Specialties Festival—lend a hand, share the sweetness, and support Guazhou's farmers.

A Brief Record of NSD's Public-Interest Work in Guazhou

Donated RMB 200,000 to build 200 square metres of student dormitories at Hedong Township Central Primary School in Guazhou County, and held the unveiling ceremony for Langrunyuan Hope Primary School.

Connected the tenth stop of the Shanghai Charity Brightness Campaign.

Assembled more than 60 ophthalmologists and professors from major Shanghai hospitals, together with members of the PKU Alumni Association and supporters from many walks of life, into a Charity Brightness expert team. Working at Guazhou County People's Hospital, the team held free clinics and treatment, seeing 2,666 patients with eye disease and performing 230 cataract operations free of charge.

Extended support to Guazhou across cultural, educational, health and county-development programs. Donated RMB 200,000 to Shahe Township Central Primary School and established the PKU Langrun Scholarship.

Donated 382 books to Nancha Township Central Primary School, all of them placed in the school library and reading corners and widely read by teachers and students. The PKU Langrun Scholarship at Shahe Township Central Primary School was set at RMB 50,000 a year—RMB 1,000 each per year for 30 students of outstanding achievement and 20 students from low-income families—and RMB 150,000 has been disbursed in total, benefiting 150 students.

Cumulative book donations reached 4,697 volumes, worth RMB 96,000. Alumna Chen Xueya (E08) led the design of the Guazhou County Library logo, now in use on library cards and signage. Classes E16 and E17 donated RMB 200,000 to Guazhou County for 54 Lenovo computers, all of them used to upgrade facilities at community-level cultural and educational institutions.

The E17 Charitable Foundation donated RMB 40,000 worth of books to the Guazhou Library, and alumna Wang Huiying (E06) donated 100 copies of the Wang Ding collection. Wang Bing (E18) donated RMB 350,000 worth of fundus examination equipment to Guazhou County First People's Hospital. The E17 Charitable Foundation contributed more than RMB 100,000 to launch the second cohort of PKU NSD's training program for leading officials of counties and cities in poverty-stricken areas, funding nearly 50 Guazhou officials to study at PKU and visit alumni businesses. Alumnus Mou Zhen (E03), general manager of Lenovo Image, donated RMB 56,000 worth of printing equipment and set up a 3D printing classroom at the Guazhou Library; Shi Libin and Pan Yiqiong of the E17 Charitable Foundation donated 20 second-hand computers.

The Green Pepper Program, co-initiated by alumnus Xiong Yunhong (E16), raised RMB 110,000 and trained more than 200 young teachers in Guazhou County. During Gobi 15, Lenovo Image donated a 3D printing innovation centre and office printing equipment worth RMB 110,000 to Guazhou No. 1 Middle School. Ding Gang, vice president of the E17 Charitable Foundation, donated 15 computers worth RMB 40,000; Class E19 donated 13 computers worth RMB 30,000; and Shi Libin, president of the foundation, donated 10 computers worth RMB 20,000.

Donated height-adjustable desks and chairs worth RMB 100,000 and a 3D printing classroom worth RMB 100,000 to Guazhou's education and culture and tourism departments, together with RMB 80,500 for the third cohort of the Green Pepper Program. Also donated 200 sets of English teaching materials and aids and nearly 150 books, along with 20 second-hand laptops and 6 second-hand desktop computers.

Wistron Software, where Xu Chunhui (E20) works, donated 42 computers. Alumni from E07 through E23 donated more than RMB 220,000 worth of computers, speakers, backpacks and other supplies to the Guazhou County Education Bureau.

Class E03 contributed RMB 100,000 to the Green Pepper Program in support of teacher training in Guazhou. Classes E22 and E23, together with faculty, students and alumni, donated RMB 150,000 to "Set Out for Love: New Limbs, New Life," which supports rehabilitation for people with disabilities in the county. Zhao Yamei (E23) donated goods worth RMB 14,000.

The NSD Gobi Club nominated the Party secretary of Shigong Village, Guazhou, for NSD Public Interest; he was admitted to the fifth cohort of the Village Head Workshop. More than 40 faculty members, students and alumni visited Shigong Village in Nancha Township, met county, township and village representatives and toured the melon farm. Group purchases of melons and goji afterwards drew more than 200 orders in two days, totalling over RMB 13,000.

The NSD Gobi Club nominated the Party secretary of Jinhe Village, Guazhou, for NSD Public Interest; he was admitted to the sixth cohort of the Village Head Workshop. Faculty, students and alumni visited Jinhe Village in Shuangta Township and paid a return visit to Shigong. The Guazhou Local Specialties Festival was launched afterwards to recommend Guazhou farm brands and organize purchases. The Gobi Club and Class E03 also helped connect the Green Pepper Program to continued support for young teachers in Guazhou.