介绍:
This is Yingxiu(映秀), a town less than 2-hour drive from China's southwestern city of Chengdu. It was the epicenter of the massive earthquake back in 2008 which killed more than 85-thousand people. Six years later, the town has become a tourist destination. Each day, thousands of visitors come here to mourn the deaths of the victims.
There's nothing left of the original town except for a local middle school. The schoolyard has been converted into an earthquake museum. The half-fallen ruins of school buildings with cracks on their external walls are a reminder to visitors that natural disasters are actually not so far away. Entry into these buildings is, of course, prohibited.
Local girls in their twenties serve as guides for visitors. Here, one guide is telling an earthquake story about how a 28-year-old teacher saved all her 42 students before the building collapsed. The teacher, however, wasn't able to get out in time. Her body was later found buried under the debris of the place where she spent her days.
Stories like this echo through the museum everyday. A local girl, who goes by Miss Zhu, is one of the story-tellers. She became a guide 2 years ago. The job guarantees her a monthly income of over 2-thousand yuan or three hundred US dollars from May to November each year, a time when the town receives the highest number of visitors.
She says that when the earthquake happened, she was right in front of her house. She was lucky not to get hurt.
But not many people are as fortunate. Prior to the earthquake, the town had a population of around 12-thousand. More than half of them died in the disaster. Currently, the town's population is approximately six thousand two hundred.
Zhu says almost all of them works in one particular industry.
"Now, almost everyone here make a living by involving themselves in the tourism industry. For old people, they can choose to open up a hotel in their new houses. That's also part of the tourism industry. Locals will not migrate to other places unless they are well-educated and are able to find a stable job outside."
But, the rise in tourism does not lead to a better economy. Before the earthquake, the town boasted more than 30 enterprises which attracted more than two thousand employees from other places. These people were also the majority of consumers for local businesses like restaurants and barber shops. The earthquake has destroyed all of them.
Even though there is an increase in the number of visitors to the area, Zhu says tourists are not stable consumers.
"Now, we Yingxiu(映秀) has a very unique tourism industry. The industry is based on people's sympathy to the town for what it suffered. Not a single ticket is ever charged at visitors. So it is possible for any tourist to have zero spending here. They can come here, take a look and then simply leave."
Natural disasters like earthquakes are rampant in the surrounding areas. This makes the number of visitors unpredictable. In July of last year, there was a massive landslide during the season when a higher number of tourists is expected.
Despite the slow recovery of the local economy, the quality of life is telling a different story.
Here is one official from the Foreign Affairs Office of the prefectural government of Wenchuan, to which Yingxiu(映秀) Town belongs. He prefers to remain anonymous.
"All earthquake survivors are living relatively well now. Our country has beneficial policies for them. They are fully covered with things like health insurance and low-income insurance, everything."
One change that have excited local residents is their new houses. The newly built town is right across the river from its original location. It only takes three minutes to walk from one place to the other.
For Zhu, if there was one thing to complain about her new house, it would be the size.
(Sound-bite Act 4 Zhu in Chinese)
"My new house is surely much better than the previous one. But the only thing not so good about it is that it is much smaller. In the past, a bedroom could contain a large bed, a large cupboard, and more. But now that's impossible."
Smaller, but more quake-resistant. The town's reconstruction plan came from Shanghai's Tongji University, one of China's top academies in architecture and city planning. All houses for local residents are designed to be capable of resisting an 8.0 magnitude earthquake. For public houses such as hospital and school, the standard is even higher.
Luo Qiyuan(罗其缘) is from the Development and Reform Commission of the Sichuan Provincial Government, the department in charge of the reconstruction after the earthquake.
"After all these years since the recovery and reconstruction, it is fair to say that basically all reconstructed houses in Sichuan have been proved safe in front of disasters. Over the past few years, there have been some massive floods and landslides. But the houses stood firm."
In Yingxiu(映秀), the majority of the new houses are of European style. Each has no more than three storeys. But not all of them look the same, as some of the inhabitants are ethnic minorities.
Almost each family now runs a business on the first floor of the new houses.
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