CHONGQING, March 10 (Xinhua) -- In a "grocery store" in Zuolan Township of southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, local resident Zeng Xingyou took a bottle of cooking oil priced at 40 yuan (about 5.6 U.S. dollars) to the cashier. Rather than producing money to pay for the cooking oil, Zeng took out a booklet that recorded his good deeds and showed it to the cashier.
"We earn points when we make contributions to our hometown. I got three points for keeping the yard clean, five for volunteer work and five for intervention when two villagers were in conflict," said Zeng, while adding that the oil had a value of 40 points.
This store also provides other goods including rice, toilet paper, and laundry detergent, to name a few, to villagers like Zeng, who can make purchases by using the points they gained in exchange for good deeds.
Such "civilization stores," also known as "points stores," can be found not only in Chongqing but across China. In 2020, the country's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs expressed its support for the promotion of this points-rewards system, as it helps ameliorate rural governance.
In Chongqing alone, 6,883 villages had adopted the points-rewards system, accounting for 78.5 percent of all villages administered by the municipality, according to a report released in June 2023. The municipality vowed to ensure incorporation of all villages into the system.
Points-rewards stores play an important role in enhancing people's enthusiasm for being active in rural governance, said Lin Yingmao, deputy Party secretary of Zuolan Township.
Prior to the introduction of the points-rewards system, local resident Gui Fengchun tended to hang bed covers and clothes on road guardrails near his house. Village cadres believed this practice took up public space and posed risks to road traffic. They tried several times to convince Gui to refrain from such actions, but their attempts proved unsuccessful.
Gui changed his ways after seeing other villagers earn points by keeping the environment clean -- points they could use to buy daily necessities. Gui began paying more attention to the public environment and later even became a cleaning volunteer in his village.
"Now almost everyone in the township is actively involved in rural governance," said Lin. "By making their hometown a better place through their own efforts, they have developed a sense of satisfaction."
Chengkou County, which administers Zuolan Township, now has a total of 204 "points stores" in its 173 villages and 31 communities. Currently, 58,000 households in the county, 84 percent of the total, have accumulated 23 million points.
The practice of points-rewards in rural areas has also facilitated the implementation of some major policies. One example was the "toilet revolution."
China launched the "toilet revolution" in 2015 to increase both the number and the sanitation levels of toilets at tourist sites. The campaign expanded to also focus on improving public toilets in cities and building better private toilets in rural areas. However, some people were initially reluctant to transform their dry toilets into water-flushing ones, as they were concerned about the difficulty of adapting to the new lifestyle, such as the maintenance of a new toilet.
In Huatian Township of Youyang Tujia and Miao Autonomous County, villagers can earn points by taking part in renovation and cleaning of toilets. The "points stores" there offer necessities for toilet cleaning, such as detergent and brushes.
"The village conducts regular evaluations of our toilet environment, with those doing well in maintenance rewarded points," said local villager Tuo Xingwei. "The points are not that many, but what we care about more is recognition."
"Besides, the supplies of 'points stores' help save costs concerning long-term maintenance of our toilets," he added. "To us, maintenance of the new toilet is now no longer something we consider costly and time-consuming, but rather something rewarding." ■