Despite the hardships and atrocities of Mao's rule, many of those who grew up in and survived that era, and lived through China's transition from Maoism to its complex amalgam of "capitalism with Chinese characteristics," still occasionally pine for what they perceive to be a much simpler time. Then there are the lingering effects of the Cultural Revolution, during which Chairman Mao banished millions of educated urban youths to farming villages while exalting the lives of the peasantry. Poor air and food quality are both major concerns, and Happy Farmer reflects a wistfulness for a rural China that at least in the romantic image does not suffer from such problems.
The game also taps into concerns among many members of the urban middle class that economic growth has far outpaced the country's environmental standards. "It's a way to experience life," he said. Recently, state-run media interviewed a man who tends his virtual garden during the week and his real-life garden during the weekend. Such is the isolation among China's urban population that in 2008 MTV did an Asia-wide study and discovered that China was the only country in the region where people claimed to have more friends online than off. Cities spring out of nowhere, and social networking games like Happy Farmer have become a tangible reminder of the sense of community that many migrants believe has been lost. The result has been massive economic growth and the building of skyscrapers and infrastructure at a blistering pace. Over the last 30 years, 225 million Chinese peasants have flooded the cities in search of better jobs and a higher standard of living.
The game's success reflects a deep and growing nostalgia for China's traditional agrarian way of life. As in the popular American version of the game, Farmville, some players visit other virtual farms and offer to help out others sneak around the countryside and try to steal vegetables. Every day, and sometimes several times a day, millions log in to accumulate as many points as possible by doing such seemingly mundane tasks as clicking on a screen to watch radishes grow on their own small plot of land, and to water, fertilize, weed, and harvest these virtual gardens. Since the Web game Happy Farmer was introduced in 2008, maybe 80 million people, or roughly 20 percent of China's Internet population, have started playing it or one of its many clones, according to some estimates. China's hottest Internet craze right now is all about … farming.
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