Next Stop: 'Mushroom cottages' surrounded by cascading rice terraces

Over 60 "mushroom cottages" with thatched roofs and brick walls are surrounded by cascading rice terraces in Yuanyang County of Honghe Hani and Yi Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Yunnan Province.

Regarded by experts as the best-preserved cluster of ethnic Hani architecture, the small village is named Azheke, meaning "a place where bamboo forests flourish" in the Hani language.

The terraced fields in Yuanyang, as part of the Honghe Hani Rice Terraces, were listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2013.

Although living around a UNESCO site, villagers had little income in the past and most young people chose to work in cities. The old houses were crumbling, posing a threat to the Hani traditions and culture.

In January 2018, a team led by Bao Jigang, a professor with Sun Yat-sen University in the southern province of Guangdong, came to investigate the traditional housing at the invitation of Yuanyang.

The team proposed an "Azheke Plan" that motivated villagers to protect their traditional houses and culture via a dividend system, which is to transform the entire village into a tourism project by founding a tourism company. According to the plan, the villagers hold a 70 percent stake and the government holds the remaining 30 percent to cover development costs.

Cafes, homestays and restaurants opened. Visitors from all over the world come to the village to experience the original Hani culture and to taste the fish and red rice harvested from the terraced fields.

Since the plan's launch, all tourism revenue in the village has been made public. The village has received a total of 188,000 domestic and international tourists since 2019. This July, the 10th dividend distribution ceremony was held with record-breaking total dividends of 560,000 yuan ($77,300), an average payout of 8,600 yuan per household.

"Every family in the village has a good income, and the village has changed greatly. More and more young people are willing to come back to their hometown to work," said Ma Youkai, an official of the village.

Tourism has become a popular business for over 60 households in the village. The influx of visitors helps the villagers find a balance between commercialization and preservation of their traditional culture.

Azheke Village was honored as one of the "Best Tourism Villages" by the United Nations World Tourism Organization in its 2024 selection.

(Cover designed by CGTN's Yu Peng)