The cole flower fields in Wuyuan County of Jiangxi Province attract a large number of tourists every year.(PHOTO: XINHUA)

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Yang Huajun has not cut a piece of bamboo ever since he gave up the traditional papermaking craft more than 10 years ago.

“I put away the chopper and took up the kitchen knife to cook for people on farm tours. My life is much better than in previous years,” Yang said while welcoming guests on farm tours in the village.

Yang was a villager from Yunshe Village at Taiping County in Guizhou Province. Located on the bank of the Taiping River at the foot of Fanjing Mountain, it is a village with hundreds of years of history inhabited by the Tujia ethnic minority.

“Papermaking is a craft we inherited from our ancestors. Most villagers made a living through papermaking for a long time,” Yang said. The papermaking workshops were built along the river. As the main material for papermaking, bamboo was chopped from the hills, Yang said.

However, papermaking requires the collaboration of a large number of workers, which made it a low-income profession. Yang was forced to give up papermaking and work in cities as a laborer. “My wife and I began to work at a construction site in Zhejiang Province in 2004. In 2012 we came back to village and built our own two-floor house,” Yang said. That was when he noticed that the environment of the village was getting better and the number of nonlocal tourists was increasing.

“Noticing that several families in the village were operating farm tours, I believed it was a good opportunity and started my own farm hotel,” Yang said. The net income of his farm hotel is now more than 100,000 yuan per year.

Clean water and green mountains became golden mines. Villagers started farm restaurants and hotels one after another. The local government has invested millions into improving the infrastructure in the village. Industrial projects have started to create jobs for the villagers in Yunshe and neighboring areas. 

Yang Hai, from Taiping Town, rented a three-stored building in the Tujia style and renovated it as a hotel three years ago. “The number of tourists is increasing year by year, especially in summer vacation and holidays,” Yang Hai said.

Li Xiuzhen is the only waitress at the hotel. Her family lives just a 10-minute walk from the workplace. “I used to work in Guangzhou, Shenzhou and other cities. The salaries were a little bit higher than working at this hotel. But now I can take care of my family while working at the same time,” Li said. “The environment of the village is beautiful, and we can live a comfortable life,” she said. 

The village has made rules for protecting and improving the environment, and it is now developing from an ancient countryside village to a prosperous and beautiful one, said Yang Zhengjun, deputy mayor of Taiping Town.