Scenery of Chenqiao Village in China's Fujian

Source: Xinhua| 2020-08-25 21:45:22|Editor: huaxia

(FujianPano) CHINA-FUJIAN-ZHOUNING-CHENQIAO VILLAGE-RURAL DEVELOPMENT (CN)

Villager Chen Lingyu (1st L) talks with tourists in Chenqiao Village, Zhouning County, southeast China's Fujian Province, Aug. 3, 2020. Surrounded by high mountains and seated at the top of a sheer cliff, Chenqiao is a thousand-year-old village in Fujian Province, famous for its valleys, waterfalls and sea of clouds. With an elevation of 936 meters and an average temperature of 24 degrees Celsius in summer, it is also a favorite summer resort for tourists. Since the beginning of summer, an increasing number of visitors are attracted here for hiking, camping and sightseeing. It is often the case that guest houses are fully booked on weekends. Decades ago, however, Chenqiao was still an isolated village where villagers can hardly make ends meet by farming the depleted soils. All the young people fled their hometown to earn money in large cities. By 2005, there were only about 30 elderly people left in this village that once had a population of over 1,000. In 2009, several villager businessmen came back to Chenqiao and found the village will soon be deserted as per the situation then. In order to revive their hometown, they started a tourism company with other villagers and decided to develop rural tourism. They started from mending roads and repairing dilapidated houses, and later built footpaths and pavilions along the cliff. Over the years, Chenqiao has developed from a poor and secluded "hollow village" into a popular site of rural tourism, attracting more than 200 villagers returning home to start their own businesses. In 2019, the number of tourists in Chenqiao exceeded 100,000, bringing in an average annual income of 14,800 yuan (about 2,131 US dollars) to locals. All 12 impoverished households in the village have been lifted out of poverty by the end of 2017. (Xinhua/Jiang Kehong)

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