China's "last cave dwellers" refuse to leave

(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-02-14 09:23


An ethnic Miao girl combs her hair inside a huge cave at a remote Miao village in Ziyun county, southwest China's Guizhou province February 12, 2007. The village of Zhongdong, which literally means "middle cave", is build in a huge, aircraft hanger-sized natural cave, carved out of a mountain over thousands of years by wind, water and seismic shifts. [Reuters]

ECONOMIC THREAT

Exactly when their ancestors moved into the cave, and why, is a subject of debate.

Some villagers say they have been there for generations. Others say they only moved in following the chaos that followed the 1949 Communist revolution, to escape bandits.

There is a lower cave, too damp for habitation, and an upper cave that also has no residents.

But ultimately it may be economics that kills Zhongdong. Already many villagers have left to work in richer parts of the country.

Luo Yaomei's three children have all gone, leaving her to bring up their children -- her grandchildren -- in her thatched house blackened by smoke at the cave's entrance.

"None of them want to live here," she said. "Of course the outside world is better," Luo added, sadly.

($1=7.751 Yuan)


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