Dear friends, today I am going to introduce you an archaic town located at the bank of Beipanjiang River in Zhenfeng county, Guizhou province, which is inhabited by people of the Bouyei and Miao ethnic groups.
My grandmother was born in Zhexiang and has lived there her entire life. I spent most of my childhood with my grandmother in Zhexiang, which is a small town in Zhenfeng county in Guizhou’s Qianxinan Bouyei and Miao autonomous prefecture. In the July 2013, my grandmother passed away while I was in my first year of college. Until now, I had never been back to the small town.
When I graduated from college and went back to Zhenfeng county in July, I heard that the county had undergone rapid development. Zhexiang was Guizhou’s first district to pilot a program aimed at reducing poverty by developing tourism based on ethnic culture. It was also designated as a national experimental district of mountain tourism.
In my childhood, I was impressed by the streets, street peddlers and simple life in Zhexiang. During my visits to my grandmother, I could seldom find a place to spend my leisure time except for one scenic spot in Sancha River Valley. Taking advantage of its unique natural environment and development planning, a local investor from Xingyi county, Shida Real Estate Development Group invested and developed the Double Breast Peaks resort. As the operating of such a fantastic resort and the emerging of various tourism products, original breast-shaped peaks became the one of the most popular scenic spots around the Zhenfeng county. Moreover, the Shapojiao area right over the entrance to Sancha River Valley scenic spot spontaneously formed a restaurant-based commercial center. As towns and villages began repositioning their tourism focus towards minority group culture and sightseeing tourism, Zhexiang town became pretty popular with tourists within Guizhou province.
However, as urban development shifted towards modernization, an increasing number of demands and wants were put forward in terms of the quality of tourist provision. It is getting increasingly hard to satisfy current tourists, owing to the absence of perfect infrastructure and high quality tourist products.
In 2012, sightseeing-tourism in Zhexiang town seemed to get stuck in a pattern of bottleneck tourism development, even though there are such fantastic and unique nature environment advantages there.
Driving away from Zhenfeng county, the first station is the Huangnatian transportation hub, which connects Huixing highway and Duxing highway. The former country road has been rebuilt as the landscape avenue toward Double Breast Peaks scenic spot. Compared with former muddy country road, the new landscape avenue was expanded with two bicycle paths and road lamps for 10 kilometers.
During my college years, I was jealous of the modern environment of developed towns located in the east of China. But now, hometown’s development and innovation based on its reality surprises and excites me even more.
Arriving in the south of Zhexiang town, you will notice the broad Zhexiang avenue extending toward the east as far as the eye can see. Walking east, the former brick sweatshop area was removed. Seeing from a distance, it can be noted that there are a number of indemnificatory housings standing at the foot of the mountains from the north to south. Under that, there is a row of Bouyei-featured buildings. It is broadly known that there are a number of ethnic groups living behind the mountain. Due to the rugged topography and arduous nature environment, people lived there sometimes run out of agricultural products. Besides, life condition there is quite tough compared with that in the town. In order to improve that and react to the policy of transferring and settling the countryside immigration for poverty alleviation, the migration project was implemented quickly under the help of subsidies granted for policy consideration. The “A Thousand Households--Bouyei Village” under the indemnificatory housing was exactly built for the immigration project. Currently, all the construction work was basically completed. Walking along the green belt within the village, several households were busy decorating while some of them have already hung up the shop or restaurant sign. According to a farmer’s saying, the other households would gradually move in because each of them would like to get rid of the former life condition as soon as possible.
Wandering on the pedestrian mall, I was impressed with the Bouyei-featured architecture, logical circulation design, abundant green belt and courtyard-style connection.
Moreover, it is hard to believe there are numerous infrastructures such as activity square, kindergarten, hospital and so on, making there a perfect residential area.
Out of the “A Thousand Households--Bouyei village”, walking along the south airport road whose northern pending part can extend to Gaolongpo airport in construction, turning around onto the other parallel and opposite section of Zhexiang avenue, a business block under construction jumped out at me. From a distance, once can now see the business block “A Thousand Households--Bouyei Village” and a business service center at the intersection of Zhexiang Avenue and a landscaped avenue, forming a commercial and tourism complex.
The regional development status of the new southern area of Zhexiang town impressed me a lot. At the end of Zhexiang Avenue, you’ll find the Sancha River Valley. Years ago, the main entrance to the scenic spot was a single narrow country road. During holidays or festivals in Bouyei (especially on the June 6 festival) it would often take several hours to find a parking spot due to the traffic jams on the entrance road. Now, a new road provides more space for the vehicles coming and going. Furthermore, the new entrance station and nearby park provides numerous parking lots and rest spots. At the end of the road is the Sancha River Valley activity square, which has been renamed the Zhenfeng Sancha River Valley International Camping Base. Wandering onto the greensward, former wild grasses have been refreshed. The bank of the lake has been renovated as an area where numerous performances can be held at the best sightseeing spots.
