Embracing a green lifestyle
With incentives to adopt eco-friendly habits, a Zhejiang village gives scores in waste handling
Avillage in suburban Hangzhou is being held out as an exemplar of progress in promoting responsible waste sorting in the countryside. In December, the village of Gaocheng ranked top in a monthly competition among 24 villages and communities of Dinglan subdistrict, said the village head, Yu Jianguo. Seven months earlier, Gaocheng had been a straggler at the other end of the pack.
In June, the village launched a system of incentives to help villagers cultivate the habit of good waste handling.
Gaocheng, about 20 kilometers north of downtown Hangzhou, has 204 households and a population of 895.
In front of each of those households now stand two garbage receptacles, a green one for perishables and a gray one for anything else.
Every day after dinner, volunteering supervisors check whether the rubbish has been sorted properly, something that makes the job of those who collect the trash early the next day easier.
A random check is also made once a week.
Supervisors rate every household’s performance and award a mark, and once a month, the total of marks can be converted into grocery purchases such as laundry detergent, toilet paper and cooking oil.
Yu said the village has spent more than 20,000 yuan ($3,100) a month on such awards over the past half year.
At the end of the year, villagers’ performance in keeping their environment clean can be taken into account in naming exemplary families, with cash bonuses being awarded.
One of the villagers, Li Rongchun, said that at first there was a wide divergence in the performances but over time, villagers’ waste handling has improved, and most families perform well enough to be able to win the maximum number of points.
In December, Li’s family was awarded masks and napkins, items that can also be used in improving epidemic prevention.
Yu said it is more difficult to promote wise waste handling in rural areas because most villagers have ways of doing things so deeply ingrained that they are hard to change. In addition, the population is widely dispersed, which makes a waste handling program harder to supervise.
The city of Hangzhou started mandatory waste sorting of four categories — recyclables, perishables, hazardous and other wastes — in the urban area in August 2019, and later in villages with the classification reduced to two categories, as is the case in Gaocheng.
Li said he believes that in the future, villagers will be able to get used to sorting rubbish into four categories.
While the total volume of garbage is difficult to calculate, it is decreasing because villagers have become aware of the wisdom of collecting waste paper boxes and bottles for reuse or sale, said Yu, the village chief.
The village is located in the Gaoting Mountain scenic region, well-known for its peach blossoms in spring. Fallen tree branches and leaves complicate villagers’ tasks in keeping things clean and tidy. The village spent 50,000 yuan on machinery to pulverize this waste and turn it into fertilizer.
The village administration deals with used batteries and bulky waste.
Yu said his mother, in her 70s, at first considered sorting garbage a waste of time and refused to comply with the regulations, but changed her mind after being a supervisor for a month.
She has been able to teach others tips on classification.
When President Xi Jinping, at that time serving as vice-president, visited the village in 2008, the road was covered with mud; alongside were shanties, and fowls wandered anywhere they wanted, Yu said.
But since 2010, village infrastructure including the main road, park and sewage disposal have greatly improved, a result of Hangzhou wanting to develop tourism in its urban area to the north.
In recent years, villagers have rebuilt 198 three-storey villas surrounded by osmanthus, camphor, orange, cherry or waxberry trees. They have also demolished walls enclosing their yards to give the community a more open look and feel, at the same time making access for the increasing traffic easier.
Twenty-nine households now run agritainment businesses, the most successful one with income of more than 600,000 yuan a year before the pandemic. Most of the businesses are said to generate 100,000 yuan to 200,000 yuan in income a year, according to Yu.
Villagers have all joined Gaocheng’s shareholding economy that runs two cemeteries and revitalizes collectively owned land, real estate and other investment. Each of the villagers received a dividend of more than 35,000 yuan last year.
The rewards system will continue, even though villagers have gotten the message about the importance of sound domestic waste sorting, Yu said.
In December, the provincial people’s congress of Zhejiang adopted a regulation on domestic waste sorting, aiming to reduce garbage generation, improve recycling and promote refuse treatment.
The regulation clarifies the responsibilities of government institutions and individuals, and calls for multiple recycling of packaging and daily articles, the provincial government said.
A charging system for garbage treatment in line with the principle “produce more, pay more” will also be introduced.
Culture and tourism integration not only enhances travelers’ experiences, it also gives a new lease of life to intangible cultural heritage. This was evident as artists got busy making lanterns in various shapes and sizes at Nanjing’s Bailuzhou Park in the city’s Qinhuai district in midJanuary.
Some of the creations were shaped like fish, some like lotuses. All were for the Qinhuai Lantern Festival that began on Feb 4.
The annual event in Jiangsu’s provincial capital, also known as the Jinling Lantern Festival, was named as a form of national-level intangible cultural heritage in 2006.
It takes place during the Spring Festival holidays and usually lasts for about 50 days. The hosts claim it is the longest and largest of its kind in the country.
“It’s one of the events I’ve gone to a lot over the years,” Nanjing resident Wang Qianlin said.
“It’s delightful to see so many shops and facilities of various kinds hanging up lanterns. I like how they put birdlike lanterns in the trees.”
The event combines a lantern exhibition and a fair. Visitors can appreciate delicate lantern craftsmanship while shopping, sampling local delicacies and watching folk performances such as acrobatics shows.
The festival has drawn more than 120 million tourists over the past 31 sessions. Qinhuai’s tourism income more than quintupled during the festivals between 2008 and 2017.
Lantern sales reached 10 million yuan ($1.55 million) during the 2017 event, which helped local lantern craftspeople showcase their skills while boosting their incomes.
Cao Zhenrong has been busy making ox-themed lanterns for the Nanjing lantern festival. The 77-year-old has been involved in the craft since he was a child.
His lanterns have gained an increasingly prominent place at the festival over the years. Many visitors learn the basics of lantern-making at his workshop.
His daughter, Cao Hong, has taken up the baton and combines traditional lantern-making techniques with modern technology.
For instance, she sometimes creates the designs on computers, she explained.
Cao Hong said she is determined to carry on her father’s practice and let more people appreciate its charm through events like the festival.
The festival was one of the 10 models for intangible cultural heritage and tourism integration selected by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in 2019.
It has brought attention to local intangible culture, which helps protect artists by increasing their incomes and the appeal of scenic spots that host the events, experts said.
Similar folk events during major celebrations, including the New Year holiday, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival, have enhanced venues’ status and provided opportunities for intangible culture heritage and tourism integration over the years.
A dozen folk festivals have been staged in Beichuan Qiang autonomous
county in Sichuan province to tap the local culture.
One such event is a ceremony for
Da Yu, a legendary figure who is believed to be the founder of the Xia Dynasty (c.21st century-16th century
BC) and was said to have tamed the flooding of the Yellow River.
The county’s cultural events have drawn 1 million tourist visits annually, according to local authorities.
China has inscribed 55 sites on the UNESCO World Heritage list. And the State Council has named more than 1,300 national-level intangible cultural heritage items since 2006.
The State Council’s notice for the 2016-20 tourism-development plan and the administration methods for national cultural and ecological reserves developed by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in 2018 both emphasize intangible cultural heritage and tourism integration.
Tourism products combining intangible cultural heritage with study tours, homestays, art performances and creative-art products have continued flourishing.
Income from cultural and creative products related to the Forbidden City in Beijing reached 1.5 billion yuan in 2017.
Growing cultural-tourism consumption offers promising prospects, tourism specialist Huang Zhiyuan said.
Modern technology has also helped to better display cultural charms.
Virtual tours and digitalization have brought the splendid artistic and cultural legacy of Gansu province’s Dunhuang, home to the UNESCO World Heritage site, the Mogao Grottoes, to a wider audience.
Dunhuang Academy and Huawei recently launched a virtual-tour experience of the site.
Visitors can enjoy an immersive fantasy before entering the attraction. They can see Dunhuang’s murals from outside the caves using their Huawei smartphones.
This reduces the time tourists spend inside the caverns, consequently protecting the relics while increasing the information available.
The Huawei platform fuses research, high-resolution images of the murals and three-dimensional virtual models with the physical Mogao Grottoes. It not only re-creates actual tours of the scenic spot but also provides a new way to vividly experience the grottoes.
It can, for instance, more vibrantly present such elements as the ninecolor deer portrayed in the frescos at close range, enhancing visitors’ experiences of, and connection with, Dunhuang’s art.
In Tongxiang in East China’s Zhejiang province, visitors flock to workshops to learn how to make gusao cookies, a local specialty with more than 100 years of history.
The local authority added the provincial intangible cultural heritage form to study tours in 2017.
Zhejiang’s Dongsha ancient fishing town has dug into its maritime culture to present a fishing festival. It also hosts a street that prominently displays local cultural items, such as fishbone paintings.
Popular study tours to Jiangxi province’s Jingdezhen offer opportunities to view and participate in porcelain production.
Huiju Opera, green tea and paperumbrella making in Jiangxi’s Wuyuan have also lured travelers over the years.
In East China’s Fujian province, the Yongding Tulou — the multifamily communal living structures originally designed for defense purposes — have seen architecture museums and folk-art workshops spring up around them to enable travelers to better understand the culture of this unique architecture.
The local government has also arranged for national-level intangible cultural inheritors of tulou construction and wanying tea-making to offer training to the public.
In Central China’s Hunan province, the Yuhua Intangible Cultural Heritage Museum has displayed over 350 intangible cultural heritage items, drawing in 500,000 visitors over the 2018-19 period.
The museum helps folk artists train apprentices and enables visitors to learn related skills for free. It raked in 20 million yuan in income in 2018 and boosted local cultural consumption by about 90 million yuan the same year.
In Southwest China’s Guizhou province, Matang village offers distinctive local costumes and dancing.
Many traditional-attire specialists, painters and photographers have visited over the years.
“Intangible cultural heritagerelated travel has received excellent public reviews in recent years,” said Zhang Qi, who is in charge of domestic tourism for China’s largest online travel agency, Trip.com Group.
In 2020, private bookings for tours related to intangible cultural heritage doubled over the previous year, according to the agency.
Sichuan Opera performances, Tibetan-spice processing, batik, shadow plays and thangka painting are particularly popular, Zhang said.
The story of a migrant worker who struck an emotional chord with millions of people 11 years ago has turned into a social media sensation. Bamuyubumu, 32, who is nicknamed “Chunyun Mama” (Spring Festival travel rush mother), was photographed in January 2010 by a Xinhua News Agency photographer while rushing to catch a train home in Nanchang, Jiangxi province.
The photo drew attention in news media in China and overseas, with the photographer winning two nationallevel awards.
Looking determined and holding her baby, the woman was carrying a heavy rucksack stuffed with quilts, clothing, instant noodles, bread and diapers, while also clutching a backpack in her left hand.
The photographer, Zhou Ke, lost track of the woman, but he put in years of dogged research, finally locating her last January in her home area of Taoyuan village in the Liangshan Yi autonomous prefecture of Sichuan province.
Countless netizens commented that the story of this hardworking woman demonstrated her determination to improve her life and overcome difficulties. One of the comments read: “Her life is very hard, but she holds hope in her arms.”
Netizens were touched by the image of Bamuyubumu and the innocent face of her child, who was wrapped in a clean and tidy blanket. The photo was titled “Baby, Mom will take you home.”
A photo of her smiling in the sunshine at her home taken on Jan 22 garnered such comments as: “Her smile is brimful of confidence and her eyes shine like the stars”; “I feel so glad she is now leading a better life”, and “She is a fighter”.
Describing her life in an interview recently, Bamuyubumu said: “Eleven years ago, I didn’t have enough to eat. I lived on corn, buckwheat and potatoes I grew on my land, but there was never enough.”
Bamuyubumu, who never had an education and married when she was 17, strove hard to improve her standard of living.
“I couldn’t speak or read Mandarin, so I learned it sentence by sentence while helping with work in other villagers’ fields,” she said.
“In 2009, my newborn baby lacked nutritious food. I felt she was no better off than I was, and I was determined to improve this situation.”
Bamuyubumu found a job as a laborer at a brick factory in Jiangxi. “The salary (500 yuan a month) was not that good, but it was far better than farming at home,” she said.
Like many in the Yi ethnic group, Bamuyubumu has only one name.
She and her husband now work at a wharf in Ningde, a coastal city in Fujian province. From April to July each year she grows tobacco on the family’s small farm in Sichuan.
Bamuyubumu has four children living at home with grandparents. Unlike people of her generation who never went to school, her son and two daughters are being educated and another daughter is waiting to attend school.
After she returned home in 2010, Bamuyubumu had no idea she had become a famous face. During the past 11 years, she has devoted herself wholeheartedly to making a better living, no matter the hardship.
Zhou, the photographer, never quit looking for Bamuyubumu.
“I wanted to know her story and kept thinking about it at different times. The determination she shows in the photo has encouraged me repeatedly during the past decade,” he said. Turning to China’s booming social media platforms, he posted the photo online, seeking clues to her whereabouts.
The photo was taken on Jan 30, 2010, when Bamuyubumu ended her two-month stint in Nanchang and was hurrying to the city’s main railway station for the journey to her hometown.
“I had washed the quilts and clothing
thrown away by co-workers. I wanted to take them home for the family,” she said.
Her journey home first took her to Chengdu for two days and one night. In the Sichuan provincial capital, she rested for a night at a hotel before spending another 14 hours on a train to Yuexi county, Sichuan. She reached her home near Daliang Mountain late at night.
Now, it takes only 14 hours to travel from Nanchang to Yuexi.
The shortened journey time was unimaginable for Bamuyubumu 11 years ago when she left Liangshan for the first time in search of a better life. Her family, which was planting crops on a small plot of land, was barely able to make ends meet from the annual harvest.
She told Xinhua Daily Telegraph that 11 years ago, there was no electricity at the family home. When it rained, the bed and quilt were drenched — she and her husband had to fumble around in the dark with buckets and basins to catch leaks.
Arable land was scarce in the area and locals found it difficult to make a living from farming.
The mountainous land in the village used to be barren. Planting seeds did not necessarily produce crops, especially in the event of flooding and drought.
When Bamuyubumu went to work at the factory in Nanchang, she carried her daughter while removing stones and bricks. Her daughter fell asleep on her shoulder, so she put her down and watched the girl as she continued working.
The Beijing News quoted Bamuyubumu
as saying: “I made few friends in Nanchang. I did talk to some people, but as I couldn’t understand what they were saying, I sometimes felt lonely.”
One of Bamuyubumu’s daughters saw the photo taken in 2010 online with accompanying information asking for help to find the woman in the picture.
Photographer Zhou and Bamuyubumu met each other face to face for the first time when Zhou went to her village. “I was nervous and excited when I met her,” he said.
“She looks much younger than I imagined. Her silver earrings make her fashionable.”
Bamuyubumu is always cheerful now, Zhou said, adding that her dimples show when she laughs.
With much-needed help and resources mobilized during the poverty relief drive in her home county, her family now has a stable income.
She lives in a concrete house instead of the leaky adobe home the family used to inhabit. She eats rice, meat and vegetables each day and makes a good living from planting tobacco with fellow villagers.
Initially, her family members earned 6,000 yuan a year, as they lacked expertise and experience in planting tobacco. With local authorities making concerted efforts and offering advice to residents, the family’s tobacco yields grew significantly, as did their income, which reached 100,000 yuan last year.
During his interview with Bamuyubumu, Zhou noticed that she had many blisters on her hands, which sometimes bleed when she sorts
stones on the farm. She has continued to work despite the pain.
Her determination to shake off poverty not only impressed Zhou but also her family and neighbors.
With Bamuyubumu never having received an education, the children are her hope for the future, Zhou said.
A junior high school in the north of Yuexi county is a prime example of the increased education opportunities for local children. The number of students at Xinmin Middle School has risen from 873 in 2015 to 2,425 now, with the proportion of female students accounting for 51 percent, up from 15 percent six years ago.
On Nov 17, the authorities in Sichuan said that the counties of Puge, Butuo, Jinyang, Zhaojue, Xide, Yuexi and Meigu in Liangshan prefecture had been removed from the poverty list. All 88 counties in Sichuan were no longer impoverished.
In 2018, Bamuyubumu’s family received a subsidy of 40,000 yuan from the local government to build their concrete home. The house is bright and clean, has tiled floors and many electronic appliances.
Her family is now entitled to financial support for healthcare and education. She and her husband still work away from home during the nonfarming season for extra money.
Looking to the future, Bamuyubumu said: “I have to do more work and make more money, and the children must study hard and never experience what I have been through. We should advance, no matter what happens, whatever the adversity.”