Where time slows down: A night in Zhaoxing Dong Village

A view of Zhaoxing Dong Village, Liping County, Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Guizhou Province. (People's Daily Online/Michael Kurtagh)

Some places quiet the world around you. Zhaoxing Dong Village quiets something inside you. And once it does, leaving feels like a small betrayal.

Nestled in the mountains of Liping County, Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture in southwest China's Guizhou Province, Zhaoxing Dong Village sits in a small basin as if cradled by the hills themselves. Dark wooden stilt houses rise in rows beside a stream, sunlight catching the weathered timber polished by centuries of rain and hands. The drum towers, the Dong people's most iconic architectural gift to the world, punctuate the skyline like silent sentinels. But Zhaoxing is anything but silent.

A drum tower is lit up at night in Zhaoxing Dong Village, Liping County, Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Guizhou Province. (People's Daily Online/Michael Kurtagh)

By evening, the village comes alive. Children chase each other down the village's main street, their laughter ricocheting through the lantern-lit alleys. Somewhere nearby, a few locals have gathered with instruments, and the sound drifts through the warm night air, casual and unhurried, music not for an audience but for the joy of it. Tourists stroll up and down, fully dressed in the attire of the Dong people. Above it all, the drum towers glow against the dark mountains, their silhouettes reflected in the stream below. You find yourself standing still, just listening, reluctant to move in case the moment breaks.

Then someone invites you to sit down and eat.

Sour soup fish is not a dish you forget. The broth, a vivid red made from fermented tomatoes and wild chilies, arrives at the table still furiously bubbling, tangy and fiery in equal measure. Sharing it around the pot, inside a wooden house that has stood for generations, is the kind of meal that reminds you why people travel at all.

A picture of sour soup fish, a dish popular across Guizhou, taken in Zhaoxing Dong Village, Liping County, Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Guizhou Province. (People's Daily Online/Yuan Meng)

Yet the most remarkable thing about Zhaoxing is not the village you see today. It is the journey that made this moment possible.

Not long ago, getting here was a journey that swallowed days. Travelers would spend a full day reaching Kaili city from the provincial capital Guiyang, then face another bumpy bus ride the following day just to arrive at the village. Poor roads and geographic isolation kept the outside world at arm's length, and for a long time, economic opportunities were just as distant. Among China's largest Dong ethnic communities, Zhaoxing struggled for decades with the twin burdens of limited connectivity and a narrow economic base.

A traditional Dong stilt building is covered with banners colored by the group's tie-dye technique in Zhaoxing Dong Village, Liping County, Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Guizhou Province. (People's Daily Online/Michael Kurtagh)

That story has changed dramatically. Today, Zhaoxing sits just 5 kilometers from the nearest high-speed rail station, and the development that followed that connection has been remarkable. By the time China declared victory over extreme poverty in 2020, more than 800 local households, nearly 3,500 people in total, had been lifted above the poverty line through tourism-related work. The benefits spread outward too, with more than 15,000 residents across surrounding townships sharing in the gains.

The scale of what Zhaoxing has become is striking. In 2025, the village welcomed more than 1.51 million visitors, with total tourism revenue topping 1.5 billion yuan (about 220 million U.S. dollars) and collective village income crossing the three-million-yuan mark.

But statistics only tell part of the story. The more important one is visible in the faces of the people who live here, people who are not just surviving on tourism but genuinely thriving through it, on their own soil, in their own homes.

Locals relax under a drum tower during the day in Zhaoxing Dong Village, Liping County, Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Guizhou Province. (People's Daily Online/Michael Kurtagh)

And the culture itself remains vibrantly intact. The Dong Grand Song still fills the evening air. The centuries-old tradition of polyphonic choral singing is recognized by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage, but here it does not feel preserved behind glass. It still lives. The village has built its tourism model around what it already had: the music, the crafts, the food, the architecture, and the warmth of its people. The results go beyond income. Residents have seen real improvements in local infrastructure and education, and perhaps just as importantly, a deepened pride in who they are and where they come from.

A stream is straddled on both sides by traditional stilt houses in Zhaoxing Dong Village, Liping County, Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Guizhou Province. (People's Daily Online/Michael Kurtagh)

Zhaoxing is proof that preservation and prosperity are not opposites. That a village can grow without growing apart from itself. That the best kind of development is the kind where the people who build it are also the ones who get to enjoy it, every single day.

One day is not enough. It only gives you time to start missing the place before you've even left.