Work to develop a 1,200 year-old brine pan into a tourism destination is underway in Yangpu Peninsula of Hainan Province, south China.
Infrastructure and tourism facilities have been built in the Yantian (Brine Pan) Village, where visitors are able to have a personal look at ancient salt-making methods.
The villagers, whose ancestors moved to the area from Fujian Province in the east more than 1,200 years ago, have kept the old skills -- to first make bittern by spilling sea water over the foreshore and then turn the bittern into salt through baking in stone troughs.
Emperor Qianlong, also a calligraphic master of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), wrote an inscription about the local salt, which is said to be of good taste and able to heal many diseases.
Currently, there are more than 1,000 troughs scattered around the beach, and more than 30 families in the village are still producing salt by the traditional method.
(Xinhua News Agency August 4, 2003)
