Village nurtures prosperity

From time to time, Li Fashun will reminisce about the visit of a special guest to his abode in Simola Va village two years ago.

President Xi Jinping dropped in on the farmer, whose home is in the village of Qingshui township, Tengchong city, Southwest China's Yunnan province, at the beginning of 2020. The president learned about Li, his family and their daily lives during an inspection tour to the province and was invited to join them in making rice cakes. Xi also beat a wooden drum of the Va ethnic group three times, a ritual to bless the coming year.

"I wouldn't have dreamed that President Xi Jinping would come to my home, and sincerely inquire about our lives," Li says.

The visit coincided with the year set as the deadline for China to eliminate absolute poverty. During the inspection, Xi noted that shaking off poverty is the starting point for a new and happy life, calling for the vigorous promotion of rural vitalization after a moderately prosperous society in all respects is achieved.

Li was greatly encouraged by Xi's words and, later that year, started a rural catering business, which had been a long-held dream of his.

Li and his wife also sell tea leaves and date cakes.

In the best of times, their business can bring them 100,000 yuan ($15,000) a year.

Li believes that better things are yet to come for his village once the pandemic is fully over.

"The living environment has improved over the past two years, and so has the public observance of social codes," Li says.

"We've ridden the wave of tourism development and realized our dream."

Li's life is the epitome of the positive changes that have taken place across the village.

Simola means "a happy place" in the ethnic Va language and, for the past 500 years, the village has been mostly populated by the Va people.

However, until a few years ago, the village had fallen into disrepair as locals struggled with poverty. They used to worry about rain leaking into their thatched houses in summer and the chill seeping in through the thin walls in winter.

The local authority has strived to revitalize Simola over the years. Unattended farmlands, washroom facilities and animal pens have been transformed into parks, grasslands, pavilions or public squares.

"It was filthy and stinky, and I could smell it from my own yard," Luo Zhuangdi recalls, referring to a vacant lot in front of her house.

Luo readily answered the village's call to upgrade the rural environment a few years ago and took the initiative to dismantle an unsightly and poorly equipped toilet in the neighborhood.

Now, it is enjoyable to chat with her neighbors in those public spaces.

"We turned a space of 3,310 square meters into parkland, which has not only improved living conditions, but also satisfied the needs of local people and tourists alike in terms of leisure and entertainment," says Zhao Jiaqing, an official with Qingshui.

Zhao says he still feels moved by the president's words during his visit, which further confirms to him that he made the right choice returning to the village in 2010 after venturing into the outside world.

Zhao's experiences in big cities inspired him to recognize the potential in the pristine natural landscape and the charming folk customs of Simola.

"What it needed was an introduction of new concepts and more talent," Zhao explains.

Under the village authority's guidance, Zhao led a team of Party members and relatively educated villagers to give ethnic culture lectures and provide technical training sessions for cooking, tea rituals, crop planting and animal husbandry.

Those efforts have equipped local villagers with skills for a better future. In 2017, Simola was officially struck off the poverty list.

The local authority has invested 150 million yuan in turning the village into a national scenic spot.

Efforts have been made to integrate local agriculture with tourism and six industrial zones were set up, offering tea and ethnic cultural experiences, traditional Chinese medicine and agricultural experiences.

More than 14 kilometers of roads were paved and landscaping design was implemented, including the cultivation of more than 26 hectares of brightly colored rapeseed.

In June last year, a polychromatic rice paddy was built, becoming a tourism hot spot for urban travelers, especially those from downtown Tengchong.

These days, practically every household is adorned with lush green plants, both at the front and back, and spotless toilets that are linked to a modern sewage system.

An ethnic Va culture exhibition hall and tiered farmland sightseeing zone have also been added to enhance the experience of visitors.

About five months after Xi's 2020 visit, the village encouraged 73 rural households to join a tourism development cooperative. They have been given support to start up their small tourism-related businesses or engage in tourism infrastructure construction.

Meng Jialiu was one of the first to join the cooperative, which has allowed him to participate in the management of a rural restaurant that was built on part of his land.

The 55-year-old once left the village and worked as a mason, and now he receives 100 yuan daily.

Moreover, Meng received a second dividend from the cooperative in January.

"It's nice to have a steady income, and I feel way better than before," Meng says.

His wife and elderly son have also managed to make a living through tourism development.

Now, his wife is selling distinctive local farm produce on a bustling street, where visitors can feast on traditional Va food from some 30 booths, including black tea, preserved fruits and cakes, as well as enjoy handmade artworks. Meng's son works as a tour bus driver.

The restaurant was a joint effort between the cooperative and an independent company, and as part of the joint operation of the restaurant, the cooperative will be given 150,000 yuan for rent annually.

When the profit exceeds 375,000 yuan a year, the cooperative will get 40 percent of it, according to Zhao.

In addition to the restaurant, over the past two years, barbecues and homestays have also been developed this way to boost integration of first, second and tertiary industries.

So far, more than 1,000 villagers have been employed because of the cooperative operations, and altogether they have received an extra income of more than 5 million yuan.

Along with those improvements came the increasing number of tourists.

Zhang Ninghai from Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang province, chose Simola as the first stop of his journey to Tengchong during the Spring Festival holiday this year.

He was impressed by the pastoral scenes and took many photos of the village during his stay.

"The afternoon wind caresses the rapeseed flowers in the distance, sending waves of golden blossoms to the boundary of the sky," Zhang recalls.

Zhang also dined at Meng's restaurant, which was built against a mountain. The big banyan tree, the tracery, and gray walls have been etched into his memory.

In the tea section of the restaurant, a sunken fire pit is surrounded by long ivory white sofas.

"It's a collision of simplicity and modernity," he says.

Simola received about 470,000 tourist visits during 2020 and last year, with a collective income of 308,000 yuan, about 77 times that of 2019, according to local authorities.

Per capita income reached 17,826 yuan, up 55.5 percent as compared with that in 2019.

Zhao says Simola will continue to develop distinctive rural products that can be taken away by visitors as gifts, as well as carry forward folk arts through staged performances.

"The goal is to improve public income and realize rural vitalization," he says.