Riding the World Heritage Gravy Train

By staff reporter LU RUCAI

TO tour guide Wang Yanli, Chengde’s world heritage status is far more than just a source of civic pride. “Chengde’s minimum living standard is 218 yuan a month. These days tour guides earn around 3,000 yuan a month,” she explains cheerfully. Increasing numbers of visitors to Chengde have made tour guiding a relatively lucrative occupation. Within its 18.6 square kilometer area are more than 60 travel agencies employing 2,000 tour guides. Most sprang up during the mid-1990s when Chengde’s imperial mountain resort and outlying temples were made UNESCO world heritage. Cultural status may be gratifying, but the prospect of increased tourism is the main motivation behind local government applications for world heritage listing.

Sources of Wealth

In July 2004, the capital cities and tombs of the ancient Koguryo Kingdom in Ji’an City, Jilin Province became China’s 30th UNESCO world cultural and natural heritage site. This brought China into the world top three, along with Italy and Spain. Shortly after, the number of tourists to the site exploded. Upon acceptance of World Heritage applications, residents of the relevant localities are euphoric, but for reasons of monetary anticipation rather than national pride. Statistics show that world heritage status brings huge economic benefits. When Huangshan was listed, Anhui’s annual tourism income increased to more than 200 million yuan from its previous few million. In 2000,Yunnan’s Lijiang, listed in 1997, raked in 1.344 billion yuan from tourism, and its tourism-supported tertiary industry prospered sufficiently to contribute half of the local GDP. This boom in tourism added momentum to proposed expansion projects of existing world heritage. In 2004, approval to extend the imperial palace in Shenyang and the three Qing Dynasty imperial tombs in Liaoning brought commercial benefits to the six locations encompassing 50 Ming and Qing imperial mausoleums.

Unprecedentedly high levels of income have caused residents of historic sites and areas of natural beauty view them in a new light. They now bone up on ancient battles and personages in order to enhance their new role of tour guide. Before the Great Wall was listed, Li Yujun earned a paltry few thousand yuan a year from laboring in the field at its foot. Since the dramatic increase of visitors to the Wall in 1987, he has abandoned farming in favor of selling souvenirs and film from his own booth, while his wife sells snacks and drinking water along the tour route. The couple makes enough to pay their son’s school fees, all household expenses and still have some to spare. According to Li Yujun, few villagers these days live on farming as most, like he and his wife, work as full-time vendors. Guo Zhan, head of the State Cultural Relics Bureau’s World Heritage Department, says that China currently has 1,271 ancient sites that qualify for national-level protection, all of which merit world heritage status. Local governments apply as soon as circumstances permit, from which time their residents happily anticipate earning their bread from tourism rather than toiling in the field.

The resolution adopted at this year’s World Heritage Conference convened in Suzhou, however, means that they must be patient. It states that a country may apply for two world heritage sites a year only, and that one must be natural heritage. According to Guo Zhan, the Chinese government has rejigged its national-level cultural relics list into a “World Cultural Heritage Candidate List.” Macao’s historic buildings are scheduled for the year 2005 slot, and the Yin Ruins in Henan’s Anyang follows the next. More than 100 other localities are waiting their turn.

High Honor, Heavy Obligation

Although listed, the capital cities and tombs of the ancient Koguryo Kingdom must first undergo a three-year probation period. Says Zhai Liguo, head of the Cultural Relics and Museums Section of the Jilin Provincial Cultural Department, “World Heritage status is not a lifetime honor. Those failing to maintain the required standard receive a ‘yellow card,’ while delaying too long before making necessary reparations results in a ‘red card’ and being struck off.” He is more aware than most local officials of just how onerous a world heritage site nomination can be.

Residents of sites of historic interest and natural beauty associate world heritage nomination with ultimate tourism. The huge profits reaped by Chengde since its UNESCO endowed status make other relics-rich places itch for a piece of World Heritage action. “Many local governments invest huge amounts of funds and manpower in refurbishment in order to apply for a World Heritage listing when they have no inkling of the follow-up requirements,” says Professor Liang Yongning of the Kunming University of Science and Technology, and frequent participant of World Heritage Conferences, adding, “These huge preliminary inputs can be compensated only by exploiting tourism.”

Funds swelling the revenues of world heritage host localities are earned at the risk of rapid erosion of their source. During China’s three seven-day annual public holidays, at least 300,000 people visited Beijing’s Palace Museum in the first three days alone. This is four times the number recommended if damage is to be avoided. At peak season, Chengde, a city of 300,000 residents, receives 100,000 visitors a day. Experienced tour guide Wang Yanli plans her tours out of peak hour because otherwise, as she says, “Nothing is visible but other people.”

A superabundance of tourists necessitates hasty construction of facilities that take a heavy toll on the relics and sites that merit a locality’s world heritage listing in the first place. Says Xie Ninggao, director of the World Heritage Center of Beijing University, “Cultural relic experts have opposed construction of cable car lines on Taishan for the past 20 years, but there are nonetheless three cableways up the mountain.” Visitors do not follow this line. “How on earth are my wife and I to get to the top of the mountain without a cable car?” asks senior citizen Liu Jiaming. At the 28th Suzhou World Heritage Conference, administrators of five world heritage sites – Hubei’s Wudang Mountains, Beijing’s Palace Museum, Yunnan’s Three Parallel Rivers, Lhasa’s Potala Palace, and Suzhou’s Classic Gardens -- were asked to detail their protection and conservation measures. They were immensely relieved at the “ok” response to their replies. “Many local officials fear being entered on the endangered list, not realizing that it is for purposes of heightened protection,” says Tian Xiaogang, general secretary of the Chinese National Commission for UNESCO. “To them, making such an admission means loss of face.”

A Long Way to Go

“I’d like to replicate a Suzhou garden in miniature at my home in Venice,” said Francesco Bandarin, director of the UNESCO World Heritage Center at the 28th World Heritage Conference press conference in Suzhou. Since 1985, when the first Suzhou garden was re-created in New York, a further 20 have appeared, spread over North America, Europe, Southeast Asia and South Africa. Although gratified at these foreign tributes, Suzhou people are grimly aware that protection of their classic gardens is now crucial. According to Jiang Renjie, deputy mayor of Suzhou, since 2002 the city has invested 10 billion yuan -- six billion yuan in 2004 alone -- in renovating the city’s nine world heritage gardens and in the protective riverside scenic project along its ancient waterway. The publicity campaign accompanying this huge investment has brought home to Suzhou citizens the importance of world heritage protection. Cui Xiuling lives near Wangshiyuan (Fisherman’s Garden) and goes there every weekend to take tea and feed the fish. It is only in recent years that she has become conscious of its uniqueness. “In the past I walked past the garden every day, taking everything about it for granted. It’s only since it became a world heritage site that locals like me began to realize how special it is. World heritage status has brought world recognition to Suzhou’s gardens and also enabled us natives to reassess their value.”

Residents of world heritage sites are beginning to understand that the state of repair of these sites directly affects their economic well-being. Without them, there would be no visitors and, therefore, no tourism income. Zhang Yun and his family live at the foot of the Great Wall, and make their living mainly from accommodating tourists. He says that it was common practice in the past for villagers to use a few Great Wall bricks when building houses or courtyard walls. Today, however, “Anyone who dares to do such a thing faces the wrath of the whole village, as the Great Wall belongs to every one of us and we all depend on it for our livelihood.” Zhang Yun and his fellow villagers now firmly stand in the protectionist ranks, albeit for reasons of self-interest.

Active involvement on the part of cultural relics experts has heightened the collective conservation consciousness, particularly within local governments. A plan to build a dam at the ancient Dujiangyan irrigation system site in Sichuan has now been shelved. A sightseeing elevator at the Wulingyuan scenic area also stopped operation after vehement protests and criticism, and between 1999 and the first half of 2002, 180,000 square meters of unlicensed construction in the area was dismantled.

The preliminary plan to keep the number of visitors to a reasonable level formulated by the Palace Museum in Beijing includes restricting tour groups during national holidays and emergency closure of certain tourist spots. Meanwhile, Suzhou has opted for raising the prices of entrance tickets to its gardens by an average of 30 percent. This measure, however, has not significantly reduced the number of visitors, concedes Qian Yi, director of the Zhuozhengyuan (Humble Administrator’s Garden) Administrative Committee. Tourists coming to see the gardens are not put off by higher prices, and local citizens can buy an annual season ticket to 20 gardens for 120 yuan. To travel agencies, neither the price hikes nor emergency closures are acceptable. “They hamper our operations and give tourists the impression we are cheating them,” says Wang Yanli.

Says Qian Yi, concurrently deputy curator of the Suzhou Garden Museum, “There are too many cultural relics in Suzhou to be protected by the government alone. We have entrusted maintenance and protection of certain ancient buildings to businesses that have tendered for the work, and the results are encouraging. Thirty-five percent of preservation expenditure this year has come from non-government sources.” She is still more gratified to note that visitors these days show far more respect for Suzhou’s historic treasures than they did in the past, and no longer thoughtlessly deface them by inscribing their names.

World Heritage Sites in China

Cultural:

1. The Great Wall (1987)

2. Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties (1987)

3. Mogao Grottoes (1987)

4. Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor (1987)

5. Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian (1987)

6. Mountain Resort and its Outlying Temples, Chengde (1994)

7. Temple and Cemetery of Confucius and the Kong Family Mansion in Qufu (1994)

8. Ancient Building Complex in the Wudang Mountains (1994)

9. Potala Palace, Lhasa (1994)

10. Lushan National Park (1996)

11. Old Town of Lijiang (1997)

12. Ancient City of Pingyao (1997)

13. Classic Gardens of Suzhou (1997)

14. Summer Palace in Beijing (1998)

15. Temple of Heaven in Beijing (1998)

16. Dazu Rock Carvings (1999)

17. Mount Qingcheng and the Dujiangyan Irrigation System (2000)

18. Ancient Villages in Southern Anhui -- Xidi and Hongcun (2000)

19. Longmen Grottoes (2000)

20. Imperial Tombs of the Ming and Qing Dynasties (2000)

21. Yungang Grottoes (2001)

22. Capital Cities and Tombs of the Ancient Koguryo Kingdom (2004)

Natural:

23. Jiuzhaigou Valley (1992)

24. Huanglong (1992)

25. Wulingyuan (1992)

26. Three Parallel Rivers in Yunnan (2003)

Cultural and Natural:

27. Mount Taishan (1987)

28. Mount Huangshan (1990)

29. Mount Emei and Leshan Giant Buddha (1996)

30. Mount Wuyi (1999)