Targeted Poverty Alleviation: Countryside tourism brings opportunities to Yunnan Province

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A song to welcome guests. With this countryside restaurant, Genjin now lives a life she couldn't imagine just a few years ago. She says when she married and moved to Longmenzhai village in 2011, everything was backward.

YU GENJIN VILLAGER, YINGJIANG COUNTY, YUNNAN PROVINCE "At that time, we lived with our livestock in a stinky house that had muddy floors. What's worse, a magnitude-seven earthquake hit this area in 2014. But luckily, with the help from the government and others, we rebuilt and renovated our home."

Genjin's husband was a migrant worker with an annual savings of less than $360 dollars, but now he helps his family run new business.

PAI DELIANG VILLAGER, YINGJIANG COUNTY, YUNNAN PROVINCE "Everything changed especially in 2016, when we began to build and run this farm restaurant."

Now the couple receives visitors mainly from neighboring cities and towns and has earned a total of more than $14,000 dollars last year, five times more than 2016. This is only one of the agritainment trials for poverty alleviation in Yingjiang county.

ZHENG YIBING YINGJIANG COUNTY, YUNNAN PROVINCE "In Xiamengpi village, some 20 kilometers away, the same situation is happening."

The village was the epic-center of the deadly 2014 earthquake, which destroyed nearly 80,000 homes. It was rebuilt in a more hospitable surrounding.

Besides the government-funded agritainment project which aims to lift people out of poverty, citizens looked outside for other tourism ideas. Villagers took the initiative to promote themselves through showcasing items like hand-made folk costume and wares.

JIANG CHENGMEI VILLAGER, YINGJIANG COUNTY, YUNNAN PROVINCE "It took us one or two months to make such a costume with our Lisu folk style signifying fortune and harvest. Last year, I made ten, and sold them for over $280 dollars and they are popular."

For her, poverty has become history. Now, even in tourist off-season in winter, with growing traditional cash crops, life is good. Just like Genjin and her husband now hold that they won't go anywhere, and will stay at their home, and work on a better life.

Zheng Yibing, CGTN, Yingjiang in Yunnan Province.