Rural tourism enriches ethnic minorities in Weixi County

As an essential content of holistic tourism, rural recreational tourism has increased the income of local ethic minorities in Weixi County.

He Jinying is a Naxi woman living in the Hada village of Tacheng Town, Weixi County.

When we visited her home on August 15, she was cleaning her four guest rooms, which were adapted from previous cattle cottages.

Her five-year-old son was sitting on the sofa and watching a cartoon, while her husband was working as the chef at a hotel in the village.

In the past years, an increasing number of visitors have come the village, enriching the villagers.

"We offer our guests RMB 960 and RMB 1,200 daily packages: the 960 service include three meals and a room, while the 1,200 package has an extra outdoor barbecue," said He.

In July, the guest rooms and meals brought her a gross income of 100,000 yuan.

"Some guests asked us to teach them how to make tofu with traditional grind stones at home, others proposed to have cooking exchanges with us. These activities proved good experiences, and the guests liked them a lot."

The guests of He are mostly vacation-goers from China's coastal cities, especially Shanghai. They come for a change, getting away temporarily from the crowd.

He's husband also help locals to sell their specialties to the outside world, including walnuts, honey and hams. All are organic foods.

By doing so, her husband has got to know many business people outside, and some also became their guests.

 

He Jinying's guest rooms are wellkept, and the lovely court yard is decorated with flowers and lush plants, contributing repeated visits.[page]

Out of the three county-level divisions of Diqing Prefecture, Weixi has lower elevation in average, forming some beautiful patty fields where rice are growing fast nowadays.

However, Weixi also boasts high mountains, forming the Tacheng national park where around 500 Yunnan snub-nosed monkeys inhabit.

While entertaining tourists from afar, the cute creatures also provide job opportunity to villagers around the park.

 Yu Janhua is a Lisu man who has worked long as a monkey feeder in the mountains.

Yu feed the monkeys with nut, cooked eggs, fruits, vegetables and peanuts twice a day, which brings him a monthly income of 1500 yuan. 

Yu is 66 and he has been serving the mokeys for over 20 years. Yu also grows crops, earning his family an extra income of around 10,000 yuan yearly.

Yu can even "talk" to the monkeys with a whistle, drawing the monkeys closer to the watchers.

Among the monkey watchers this morning are a young couple from eastern China's Zhejiang Province, who brought their 2.5-year-old baby to Yunnan to see the monkey and get closer to the nature.

"The monkeys in the forest are quite different from those in the zoo, and they are wilder," said the couple.

The Tacheng park is located at the heart area of the Three-Parallel-Rivers world heritage.

To attract more visitors, Weixi also stepped up effort in intangible cultural heritage conservation.

Now, 65-year-old Tibetan man He Mingyuan is encouraged by local tourism authority to train more singers specializing King Gesar chanting.

King Gesar is a legendary Tibetan king famous for brave fighting. And his story was complied into an epic by later generations.

Reporting in Weixi by Eric Wang / Yunnan Gateway