Aba attracts tourists with ethnic culture
- By Jason Lee
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E-mail China.org.cn, July 7, 2016
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Two ethnic groups, Tibetans and the Qiang people, with a combined population of more than 800,000, account for about 80 percent of the Aba region's population. [Photo / China.org.cn] |
"Few people would go out of the way to build the old things. They are useless now that we have guns," said Peng Zhao, party chief of Keku town, which Dasi is a part of.
Peng and his colleagues pay special attention to protecting the old Qiangdiao tower in Keku because "it is a symbol of Qiang architecture and, more importantly, a tourist attraction."
"The loss of Qiang culture is disturbing," said Yang Zhiwen, head of the Dasi village. Yang left Dasi to work in Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan at 16, and came back in his early 40s in 2006 as a successful businessman.
"I saw villagers sell the cultural relics they'd unearthed in the ancient tombs for low prices and felt my hometown was being hollowed out," Yang said. He built a Qiang ethnic culture museum in Dasi as a tourist attraction, contracted the villagers' land and employed them to plant plum, blueberry and herbs instead of the potatoes and corn they'd planted for generations.
The personal annual income of the villagers rocketed from 500 yuan (US$77) in 2008 to 10,000 yuan last year, thanks to revenue from tourism and agriculture.
"Compared with government-run cultural protection projects, the model of Dasi is more sustainable and effective," said Luo Jinyong, director of Hanchuan Museum in Aba and a Qiang culture expert. "The Qiang people have the same ancestors as the Han people, who boom as the largest ethnic group in China later. For most Han tourists, visiting Qiang village is like calling on their ancestral brothers, who have maintained an ancient lifestyle."
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