Villagers make light of 'sacrifices'

On the way to Hualiba village, I watched a 45-minute documentary made by China Central Television last year about the people who had been relocated.

I was moved by the sacrifices the migrants had made for the project, but also surprised by the footage of neat, red-roofed, three-story houses that dotted the plain. The scenes prompted me to ask how the lives of the residents have changed in the years since they were relocated.

When I got off the bus and walked along the street, I saw houses that looked exactly like the ones in the documentary, but when I got closer, I discovered that many had cracked walls, and three houses had no glass in the windows on the third story.