Professor turns impoverished village in SW China’s Yunnan into tourism hotspot

Li Xiaoyun, a professor at China Agricultural University in Beijing, has transformed a remote mountainous village in southwest China’s Yunnan Province into a popular tourist destination, helping boost rural revitalization in the village.

Today, when people visit Hebian, a village of the Yao ethnic group surrounded by tropical rainforests in Mengla county, Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan, they are greeted by neatly paved roads flanked by trees and flowers, and rows of tidy wooden houses built with Yao ethnic characteristics.

An old traditional-style house in Hebian village, Mengla county, Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China’s Yunnan Province.  (People’s Daily Overseas Edition/file photo)

New traditional-style houses in Hebian village, Mengla county, Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China’s Yunnan Province. (People’s Daily Overseas Edition/file photo)

It is hard to believe that when Li visited the village in 2014, it was mired in poverty.

Back then, livestock ran around in the village and some villagers lived in dilapidated wooden sheds. Villagers relied on the weather for food and mainly got by on income from cultivating sugarcane, Wurfbainia villosa (a type of Chinese medicinal herb), and rubber trees. The annual per capita disposable income of villagers was around 4,000 yuan ($580).

Determined to lift villagers out of poverty, the professor launched a charitable organization, the Xiaoyun Poverty Aid Center, to raise funds for that purpose. With the support of the local government, the center began to explore ways to alleviate poverty in the village.

Li Xiaoyun, a professor at China Agricultural University, showcases a design plan for Hebian village, Mengla county, Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China’s Yunnan Province to villagers. (People’s Daily Overseas Edition/file photo)

Li suggested developing tourism by leveraging local rainforest resources and climate conditions, starting with the building of spacious houses with Yao ethnic characteristics, which can also be used as B&B hotels.

Li’s advice was adopted by the local government. Li and the local government used funds for rural development to build gorgeous traditional Yao-style houses equipped with modern facilities, each of which has a high-quality guest room, for villagers.

A guest room in Hebian village, Mengla county, Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China’s Yunnan Province. (People’s Daily Overseas Edition/file photo)

At the same time, Li promoted the implementation of a facelift project of the village, the improvement of kitchen facilities and public restroom facilities, and the building of facilities for meetings and catering services. After the renovations, Hebian village has attracted throngs of tourists.

“We tried our best to maintain the original appearance of the village. But when you enter a renovated Yao-style residence, you will find modern facilities,” Li said.

Hebian village has promoted the development of high-end B&B hotels by fully leveraging its climate conditions, rainforest resources and Yao ethnic culture in recent years, according to a village official.

So far, the village has built 47 Yao-style B&B hotels and improved 93 infrastructure projects such as a bar and a children’s activity center.

Thanks to the joint efforts of Li and the local government, Hebian village was lifted out of poverty in 2018. Last year, the per capita disposable income of residents in the village reached 26,000 yuan.

A bird’s-eye view of Hebian village in Mengla county, Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China’s Yunnan Province. (People’s Daily Overseas Edition/file photo)

On the march toward rural revitalization, no one is left behind in Hebian village. Eight years ago, Pan Sanie, a deaf-mute woman who lost her husband and son, was desperate. Pan and her daughter made a living by growing corn and raising pigs.

“So we built a house for Pan first,” Li said. In April 2017, Pan’s guest room was put into use, which can bring in annual revenue of more than 10,000 yuan for her.

Pan also attended training sessions organized by the local government with the aim of improving villagers’ skills in providing better catering and tourism services. In addition to raising pigs and chickens, she also plants fruit trees and vegetables. Now, Pan earns over 2,000 yuan a month.

A tourist dances with villagers in Hebian village, Mengla county, Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China’s Yunnan Province. (People’s Daily Overseas Edition/file photo)

The B&B hotel business is the most important part of Hebian’s local industries, but it should not be the sole source of income for villagers, according to Li. “Planting tropical crops and Chinese medicinal herbs and raising pigs, chickens and bees can provide more diversified products, increase villagers’ income and help them better guard against risks during the slack tourism season,” the professor said.

Believing that people are key to rural revitalization, Li has attached great importance to cultivating young people in the village and ensuring that they are willing to work or even start a business in their hometown.

In December 2016, Zhou Zhixue, a villager who worked in Shenzhen city in south China’s Guangdong Province, returned to Hebian to help his family build a new house. After witnessing how Li’s team led fellow villagers to transform the village, Zhou decided to stay and contribute to his hometown’s development.

When Li’s team decided to establish a cooperative and transfer the management rights of the B&B hotel project to villagers before the Spring Festival in 2019, Zhou joined the cooperative and was recommended as the general manager. With the help of Zhou and volunteer university students, young people in the village have managed to use computers.

A villager carrying two bundles of bananas on a shoulder pole in Hebian village, Mengla county, Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China’s Yunnan Province. (People’s Daily Overseas Edition/file photo)

With the rapid development of Hebian village, an increasing number of young people have returned and contributed to the construction of their hometown.

The success of the village has also attracted people from other parts of Yunnan and even Africa to learn from its experience in poverty reduction and rural revitalization.

“The poverty reduction experience of Hebian and China is worth learning for my mother country Nigeria and Africa,” Harford Michael Kenechukwu, a Nigerian doctoral student at the Zhou Enlai School of Government of Nankai University in north China’s Tianjin Municipality, said after he visited the village.