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A
villager hawking souvenirs.
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Stuffed
tigers – traditional toys in the region.
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Villagers’
houses.
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An ancient tradition still observed in China’s countryside
is the hanging of elegantly designed couplets on household gates
on Chinese New Year’s Eve. While most households change these
couplets every year, those in Qinyong Village, Shaanxi Province
have kept their own unique verses for decades. The left piece
reads, “Remember Liberation and the Communist Party,”
the right one reads, “Thank Emperor Qin for Our Well-off
Life,” and the horizontal part running along the top of the
gate reads, “Be Forever Grateful to Old Yang.”
In 1974, the area was hit by a severe drought, forcing local
farmer Yang Zhifa to venture out into the hinterland to dig a
new well. He had hacked down about five meters into the ground
when he saw a life-sized clay head protruding from the earth.
This head, it turned out, belonged to one of an army of Terracotta
Warriors, built 2,000 years ago by Emperor Qin to protect him
in the afterlife.
Yang reported his enthralling discovery to the curator of his
county’s cultural museum, and the full scale of his find
was soon realized. From that day to this, hoards of tourists,
scientists and archaeologists have thronged the village, bringing
with them buckets of cash.
The Terracotta Warriors, their horses and their chariots are
today known throughout the world, and the clay army has become
the primary source of income for locals like Yang Juxiang. Now
in her 50s, the farmwife has been making a living from tourists
for 20 years. She started out selling cucumbers, but now runs
a popular souvenir booth near the parking lot of Emperor Qin’s
Terracotta Warriors and Horses Museum. As Yang Juxiang’s
business expanded, so did her purse.
Yang Juxiang sells mass produced souvenirs as well as her own
homemade handicrafts like stuffed tiger toys. She weaves rough
cotton patterns on her old hand driven loom, dyes them with bright
colors and sews in traditional decorations. Yang usually makes
her tigers in the evening, and sells them to visitors the next
day. A bigger toy goes for RMB 5, while a smaller one costs half
that sum. Yang believes the business is worth her while: “I
make these toys myself, so they cost very little to produce. And
when someone buys one, I am very, very pleased.”
Yang is in fact quite contented with life in general. Recalling
the days before the discovery, she says, “Things were tough
back then – as farmers, we had to depend on nature for our
profits. A major disaster like a drought would plunge us into
starvation. There are no such risks these days – more than
two million people come to see the Terracotta Warriors each year,
bringing tremendous business opportunities for my fellow villagers
and I.”
Through her souvenir business, Yang pulls in profits of around
RMB 100 a day. Some years back, her husband invested in a car,
and he now operates a taxi service. Last year their son followed
his father into the taxi business, and their daughter-in-law opened
up a small restaurant in the town. With every family member busy
bringing in money, they didn’t need to borrow a cent for
the 270-square-meter house that they bought and decorated at a
cost of RMB 200,000.
To further boost local businesses, the local government recently
built a nearby commercial district so retailers could operate
their activities in a central location. Shop space there costs
ordinary retailers RMB 3,000 per square meter, but thanks to a
special preferential policy, those from Qinyong Village pay just
RMB 1,000 per square meter – the local government pays the
balance. Yang has been contemplating buying one.
All of the 152 relocated villagers in Qinyong are farmers-turned
merchants. The unearthing and protection projects needed to reveal
the Terracotta Warriors to the world meant that villagers had
to vacate the land on which they had been working for generations,
and set up new – and far more lucrative – careers in
the tourism industry.
Finished in 2003, Qinyong Village is a neat cluster of two-story
houses designed according to exotic Qin architectural styles:
white walled with gabled gray-tile roofs, tawny columns supporting
the porches and bronze-colored alloy window and door frames. Though
the exteriors are old-style, these houses are fitted out with
modern facilities and conveniences including electricity, gas,
running water, sewage pipes, landlines and cable TV. Most of the
houses are 220 square meters in size, and cost around RMB 120,000.
The relocation compensation that the villagers received from the
local government covers all of these costs, but if residents want
more lavish remolding, they must carry it out with their own funds.
Initially, some of the villagers had mixed emotions about leaving
the land they had worked for so long. As Yang Juxiang explains,
“I was so accustomed to the farming life that I feared I
might feel lost living in a town.” But now Yang has few regrets
about the shift in her lifestyle – she and her family are
much more stable and secure. They enjoy improved medical services
and a democratically-elected management council is in place to
handle the community’s affairs.
The local government had planned for potential hiccups in the
former farmers’ transition to urban life. One of the problems
they anticipated was a dearth of skills necessary for the successful
running of a tourism-based business. To solve this problem, a
special office was established to plan tourism programs and offer
training courses to the villagers. One such example is the Happy
Country Home project, a hostelling service that locals operate
out of their own homes.
There are more than 50 of these inns in Qinyong Village, with
room for a total of 500 guests. Tourists find them appealing not
only for the low accommodation costs of RMB 15 to 20 a night,
but also for the delicious rural food on offer amid the pastoral
surroundings. Yang Juxiang’s brother operates one of them.
As a high-school graduate, Mr. Yang is one of the best-educated
villagers of his age. Before going into the business, he attended
a government-sponsored training course. During the course he learned
about relevant laws and policies as well as basic business skills.
His lodge is doing very well, and Mr. Yang is optimistic about
his future prospects.
Meanwhile, as more tourists pile into the area to visit one of
China’s most remarkable historical sights, locals of Qinyong
will continue to embrace the idea that life encompasses many options.
Like the Yangs, they now know that the shift from one situation
to another in many cases means not loss, but gain.
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