Qilixiang made the farmers' pocket swell
By Echo Shan (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2005-08-30 08:47

When the buses of the reporting trip arrived at the town of Qilixiang, Quzhou City of Zhejiang Province on August 24, a group of pretty looking young girls in traditional Chinese red cheongsam lined the street backed by green mountains, greeting us with kind smile.

The river of the village returns to be clean after it halted the bamboo paper production business.

Roosters and chicks wandered about in a farmer's clean courtyard. Tomatoes were planted. Upon entering the main living room of this household, a colorful poster featuring late Chairman Mao caught one's eyes immediately.

The room decorated by various posters from Chinese statesman to currently nationwide popular space hero Yang Liwei to late Taiwan diva Deng Lijun. Centered in the room are three round wood tables with different dishes on each of them.

"Our living room became the dining hall after we opened countryside courtyard club, " said the owner of this house Luo Quanfu, "dinner and bed are offered at a merely 45 yuan for each per day."

A living room of a local resident is under reconstruction to serve as a family hotel.

In the early 2005, the Huangtuling village, situated at the upper reaches of a branch river of Qiantangjiang River, opened several family hotels which soon caught on among the nearby Quzhou urban residents who wanted a countryside flavored weekend.

Featuring high quality fresh air and pollution free food, the Qilixiang Village has attracted much attention after many local country family hotels opened to visitors. Local farmers' life was made easier as money flowed in with a lot of visitors.

According to Xia Shengmin, the top official of Qilixiang, the river flowing through the Qilixiang Village, living on bamboo paper production before, has been severely polluted by the wastewater made within the bamboo paper producing.

While even at such a high price of environment pollution the 200 strong villagers still led a hard life due to the dwindling demand of the bamboo paper, mainly used as fire sacrifice to remember the dead.

Nowadays after quitting the bamboo paper production and taking to the family hotels, local environment and economy have both been greatly improved with farmers lives more and more wealthy, and healthy.

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