Deputy’s trip started at cliff-top village
One deputy to the 12th National People’s Congress had a more challenging trip than most to reach Beijing for the session’s start on Sunday.
Luo Yunlian, representing her native cliff-top village of Gulu in Sichuan province, started her journey on what might be called a “sky road” — a cable car that passes 800 meters above the roaring Dadu River. Her village is part of the county of Hanyuan in Ya’an.
The cable car crosses 750 meters of sky to get to another village, Maping, where she reached a road.
Luo spent the next few days attending meetings in cities like Ya’an before she reached Chengdu, the provincial capital, and took a flight to Beijing with other deputies on Thursday.
She spent nine travel days to bring her motions — from local tourism to electricity policy — to the NPC session.
She is one of over 3,000 deputies who can submit motions that may be adopted and become law.
Luo, who became an NPC deputy in 2013, said she would not let the treacherous landscape around her village get in her way. All in all, she has seen many improvements in Gulu.
“When I was young, it would take at least three days to travel from home to Cheng- du,” she said. “Now it takes only seven hours.”
The only way to get to Gulu used to be a narrow, 8-kilometer dirt and road cut into a cliff face. Still, the 400 villagers had to hug the cliff for five hours to leave home.
“Our people have the desire to escape poverty, but without better transportation, any industry is empty talk,” Luo said.
To Luo’s surprise, the cliff road became an attraction for many thrill-seeking hikers and backpackers, drawing over 1,000 tourists a day in peak season.
In 2014, the local government provided more than 3 million yuan ($435,000) to rebuild the cliff road into a saf- er sightseeing route as part of a targeted poverty alleviation campaign.
With the road’s improvement, the addition of the cable car and the nearby Dadu River National Geological Park, Luo said she wanted to turn the secluded village into a rural tourism destination.
In January 2016, Zheng Wangchun, a 28-year-old Gulu villager, converted her house into a small farmhouse resort, which has earned her more than 10,000 yuan. As money flows in, more villagers are supporting Luo's vision.
“The road to prosperity is still long,” said Luo. “But we are always on our way.”