Village life in the valleys and mountainside villages of the Phoenix Mountain are very rural. In fact, Luo and the narrator are the first Easterners to make the treacherous journey
to the village in over 50 years. In the village where Luo and the narrator arrive to, people work hard just to get by on a daily basis. Most villages can afford four or five "city youths"
in the reeducation process, but the impoverish one where the two friends live can only afford the two of them. Modern conveniences and luxuries like alarm clocks
and movie screenings have not even come close to reaching the Phoenix Mountain Valley.
People work hard with very crude work. For example, Luo and the narrator initially are required to carry large buckets of human and animal dung on their backs. Also, they are commanded to work in the depths of the frightening mines