Dong ethnic group increases incomes by sharing culture

At the foot of Fanjing Mountain in Jiangkou county, Guizhou province, is Zhaisha village, where most of the population belongs to the Dong ethnic group. For local villager Yang Juyuan, the development of tourism in recent years has allowed him to earn in a day what he could have earned in a year just five years ago.

He said that in the past, most local men made their living by working outside the village or by carrying sedan chairs for tourists to the mountain, earning 200 yuan ($30.70) a day during busy seasons - and zero at slack seasons.

Yang's entire family earned less than 4,000 yuan annually until 2012 when he redecorated his residence and started a farmstay. Now his family makes more than 200,000 yuan a year, and several thousand yuan a day in the busy season.