After Ding Zhen became famous, the changes and changes in Litang

At the end of May, in Renkang Ancient Street in the center of Litang County, Ganzi, Sichuan, tourists in twos and threes walked past the Tibetan House and basked in the sun in the small square. Tibetans wearing Tibetan clothes recited scriptures, passed by the tourists who were visiting, and turned around the prayer wheel. At noon, the arrival of tour groups makes the ancient street noisy. There is a constant flow of people but it is not crowded. The busiest time here is from 12 o'clock to 15 o'clock every day. The roads along the ancient street are lined with tourist buses.

May, after the long holiday, is the off-season for tourism in Litang. At this time in the past two years, there were very few tourists on the ancient street, but this year is different. As Ding Zhen and "Sky City" Litang become popular on the Internet, the number of tourists coming to Litang has increased significantly. After May Day, when the scenic spot was "full", until the end of May, the number of single-day tourists remained at four digits. The number of individual tourists, including Ding Zhen fans, increased significantly, and the number of group tourists also increased.

As a priority industry, tourism has received high hopes and support from the local government in recent years. Under the influence of the Ding Zhen effect, Litang performed well during this year’s May Day Golden Week. According to official statistics, Litang County received more than 84,000 tourists from May 1 to May 5, achieving a year-on-year increase in comprehensive tourism revenue of 98.7%.

Things are changing. But for Litang people, change or stability is still a multiple-choice question.

Although tourism in Litang is very popular, for many Tibetans in Litang, whether they can make money from tourism is still a question mark. In May, digging Cordyceps was still their first choice for making money. Most of the stalls on the ancient street were empty. The local stall owners took time off just after May Day to go digging for cordyceps in the mountains. But at the same time, some people are optimistic about the development prospects of tourism in Litang. Some people have given up or shortened the time of digging Cordyceps and instead prepared homestays to prepare for the upcoming peak tourist season from June to August.

Panoramic view of Litang County. Photo by Beijing News reporter Han Qinke

Ding Zhen’s influence

On the morning of May 27, perhaps because it rained the night before, the already thin air in Litang There seems to be less oxygen.

Wang Xue, a girl from Chongqing who had been staying in Litang for three days, felt that her altitude sickness was getting worse again. She was sitting in a black tent in the Himalayan Voice Micro Museum, breathing heavily. The promotional video "The World of Ding Zhen" was projected on the wall in front of her. Even though she had seen it countless times, she still took out her phone and took a picture of Ding Zhen's smiling face.

Wang Xue is a self-driving enthusiast. She wears a sunscreen face mask and gloves, with only her eyes exposed. In the past few years, she has traveled along the Western Sichuan Ring Road and driven along National Highway 318 from Chongqing to Lhasa. She passed through Litang twice without stopping. "I have always known about Litang and wanted to visit it, but the altitude is too high." At the end of last year, falling in love with Ding Zhen gave Wang Xue the motivation to go to Litang.

She deliberately chose the time at the end of May, when the weather is getting warmer, there is more oxygen than in winter, there are not many tourists, and the local reception pressure is low.

During the trip in Litang, Wang Xue didn’t do much planning. She just wanted to check in one by one according to the places Ding Zhen visited in the short video and live broadcast. "Super lucky!" Wang Xue happened to catch up with Ding Zhen when he went to Renkang Ancient Street to shoot. In order to see Ding Zhen more, she ran around the shooting team several times, and then had to go back to the hotel to lie down and take oxygen.

On May 27, Wang Xue, a tourist from Chongqing, watched Ding Zhen’s promotional video in the museum. Photo by Beijing News reporter Han Qinke

When walking in the scenic area of ​​Letong Ancient Town, it is easy to recognize which tourists come specifically for Ding Zhen: traveling in two or three people, dressing up fashionably, and looking for "high-end tourists" in the scenic area. "Teacher", that is, Gao Xiaoping, deputy general manager of Litang County Culture, Tourism and Sports Investment and Development Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as the tourism investment company), and Ding Zhen, the Chinese teacher. On the third floor of the 318 Travel Memory Museum in the scenic area, there are messages written by tourists and souvenirs left on a long table. There is a guestbook from 2013, as well as various pictures with "Ding Zhen" and "Zhen Zhen" written on the back.

In the first few months of this year, the proportion of Ding Zhen fans among tourists in Litang remained high. With the arrival of the peak tourism season in Litang, the proportion of ordinary tourists has gradually increased.

At the end of May, Ronaldinho, a Chengdu native who is doing outdoor travel, was checking out some routes near Litang. When choosing outdoor routes in the past few years, he always deliberately avoided Litang, even if he had to drive an extra two hours on the mountain road to do so. "The previous county town was not worth seeing, and tourists were prone to high altitude sickness, so it was not worth it." Ronaldinho told a reporter from the Beijing News that if he stayed overnight in Litang, travelers who often participated in plateau hiking would most likely suffer from physical discomfort. "The altitude is too high."

Litang County is 4,014 meters above sea level, nearly 400 meters higher than Lhasa. It is known as the "City in the Sky". Although the county seat is located at the intersection of National Highway 318 and National Highway 227, it is quite "remote" to ordinary tourists. It takes at least an hour and a half to drive from the nearest Aden Airport to Litang County. Considering the changeable climate in the plateau area, if there is a sudden snowstorm and the roads become icy, the driving time may be doubled. In addition, various attractions in Litang County are far apart. Genie Mountain, a mountainous landscape famous in the outdoor sports circle, is nearly a three-hour drive from the county seat.

This year, Ronaldinho added Litang County to his route plan and planned to arrange for tourists to stay in Litang County for two or three hours. This change was not only because of Ding Zhen’s popularity, but also because of “Letong County.” The ancient town is a sight to behold.”

"Letong" is the Tibetan word for Litang. "Le" means bronze and "Tong" means grassland, which means grassland as flat as a bronze mirror. According to information on the official website of the ancient town, the Letong Ancient Town-Qianhu Zangzhai Scenic Area started construction in 2018 and obtained the national 4A-level scenic spot license in March of the following year. The main attractions include Renkang Ancient House, Renkang Ancient Street transformed from an old residential street, and The "Kangnan Buddhist Holy Land" Changchun Keer Temple (also known as Litang Temple) is 1 kilometer away to the north. In the middle of the route, there are many miniature museums such as the Kham Museum, the Tibetan Theater Museum, and the Tibetan Incense and Tibetan Medicine Museum, which may display traditional Tibetan culture.

There are many tour groups that also add Litang to their routes. The Tibetan tour guide in the ancient town described the May Day holiday as "full". More than 20,000 tourists poured into the 100-meter-long Renkang Ancient Street. In 2010, Litang County received only 152,000 tourists.

On May 24, souvenirs about Litang left by tourists were displayed on the long table on the third floor of 318 Travel Memory Museum. Photo by Beijing News reporter Han Qinke

Data shows that during the May Day holiday in 2021, Litang ranked third in the list of famous Buddhist mountains in search volume, second only to Mount Wutai and Mount Putuo, with a year-on-year popularity An increase of 178%.

"Let guests feel like they are at home"

The rapidly growing number of tourists makes Litang people feel happy but also stressed. The shortage of accommodation beds is one of the most pressing problems they face. one.

At the beginning of this year, Cignai, the party secretary of Zhenxia Village in Gaocheng Town, Litang, compiled a list of Tibetan villagers who are willing to transform their houses into bed and breakfasts. It involves more than 40 households and can provide hundreds of places. Beds, half of which have been renovated and are ready to receive tourists. Zhenxia Village also belongs to Qianhu Zangzhai, just one street away from Renkang Ancient Street.

"The conditions are not high. There is a place at home with water and power grids. It is convenient to park. I can communicate in Chinese. I have my own wishes." Ci Nai told the Beijing News reporter that the village also arranged housing according to the villagers' houses and The situation of the yard is divided into traditional Tibetan houses, Han houses, and tent camping sites. Taking into account the limited conditions of village-run B&Bs, the current price per bed is only 40-60 yuan, and the site fee for each tent is 20 yuan.

The B&B in Zhenxia Village is part of Litang County’s tourism emergency plan. According to Bi Xuesong, deputy director of the County Culture, Tourism, Radio, Film and Television Bureau, Litang County currently has 93 hotels that can provide more than 4,300 beds. Taking into account the upcoming tourist season, especially the August 1st Horse Racing Festival, the number of overnight tourists expected to be received in a single day may be close to 10,000, Litang County has formulated a red and yellow two-level emergency plan to meet the accommodation needs of tourists.

If the number of tourists monitored by big data exceeds 4,000, a yellow plan will be activated, and staff from the villages around the ancient town will arrange for the tourists to stay in the villagers' B&Bs. If the number exceeds 5,000, a red plan will be activated to coordinate tourists to stay in surrounding towns and villages. "Currently, residents of 9 villages around the scenic area have been mobilized, which can provide about 1,500 beds," Bi Xuesong said.

On May 26, Ze Zhuoma’s family’s century-old Tibetan house and the Han room just built a few years ago. Photo by Beijing News reporter Han Qinke

Ze Zhuoma’s family in Zhenxia Village is one of the families making the fastest progress in the renovation of their B&B. Ze Zhuoma's family has two houses. One is a century-old double-storey house built when Grandpa Ze Zhuoma was a child; the other is a two-story Hanfang built with borrowed money a few years ago. Although it is a Han room, the interior decoration is still Tibetan style, with the walls covered with golden paintings and copper pot decorations. It takes 2 minutes to walk from her home to the entrance of Renkang Ancient Street.

"Guests can stay in any room they want." This 31-year-old Tibetan girl has a delicate face and a plateau red mark on her cheeks. Her Chinese is average, and she will speak intermittently when encountering complex sentences, so she rarely speaks actively and just smiles. In order to receive the guests well, the eldest daughter, who is in high school, is also planning to come back to help during the summer vacation.

Ze Zhuoma’s family consists of eight people, including parents who are over 70 and in poor health, a deaf-mute husband, her husband’s younger brother and three children, the youngest of whom has not yet entered elementary school. . In the past, she, her husband and her brother would go to the mountains to dig cordyceps from May to June every year, dig matsutake mushrooms in the summer, and go out to do odd jobs at other times. The family's annual income is less than 50,000 yuan. "Our culture is not good, so we can only do small jobs and make no money."

At the beginning of this year, after hearing from the branch secretary Zinai that we could run a B&B for tourism, Ze Zhuoma and his family agreed without much hesitation. Now, the only thing she worries about is not making money. This May, Ze Zhuoma did not dig up Cordyceps sinensis and stayed at home to renovate the B&B. “I wash the sheets and cook for guests at home, so I can earn money and take care of the children,” she said. At the end of April, her home received five tourists on a trial basis. Ci Nai helped her family calculate an account. For 10 beds, at 40 yuan/night/bed, she could earn up to 400 yuan a day, which was enough for the family's daily expenses for three or four days.

In a few days, Ze Zhuoma's family is going to move to a small room on the east side of the yard, leaving the best room in the family for their guests, so that they can experience the authentic Tibetan house. A family photo of her family hangs on the wall of the renovated room.

A few streets away, wild grasses and flowers have sprouted in the yard of villager Tashi’s house. In a few weeks, it will become a large camping ground. Tashi and his wife are both in their 70s and have difficulty communicating directly with people in Chinese. The business of the B&B mainly relies on his daughter.

Now, Tashi’s daughter is still digging cordyceps in the mountains, and the renovation of her family’s B&B is almost at a standstill. When his daughter comes back in June, he plans to ask her to go to the county town to order a sign with "B&B" written on it, and then put his B&B online.

"Do your own thing well"

Unlike Litang County, which is actively preparing tourism emergency plans and the renovation of villagers' homes, which are progressing rapidly, the staff and Tibetan residents in the ancient town are no longer very Will take the initiative to mention Ding Zhen. Everything seems to be the same as it was before Ding Zhen became famous, except for the increase in tourists, the graffiti wall and the name "Ding Zhen" on the message board, the book wall of Cangyang Bookstore filled with books donated by fans, and the people setting up stalls in the scenic spot. There are a few more "Wang Youmei" (the nickname of Ding Zhen's fans).

Tibetan girls and boys who are about the same age as Ding Zhen and are equally handsome or beautiful are still continuing their work of explaining, marketing, etc. The popularity of their companions seems to have no impact on them.

On May 27, there were not many small stall owners in Letong Ancient Town, and most of the local vendors went to dig up Cordyceps sinensis. Photographed by Beijing News reporter Han Qinke

On May 25, Ren Zhenquzha, an employee of the tourism investment company, and his colleagues prepared a Tibetan woodblock printing experience activity in the ancient town square. Visitors can make rubbings of Tsangyang Gyatso’s Tibetan poems with their own hands, and then go to the Tsangyang Gyatso Miniature Museum dozens of meters away to find the corresponding Chinese translations.

"Ding Zhen made more people know about Litang," Ren Zhenquza said. When asked if he also wanted to become an Internet celebrity, he shook his head. He wanted to do his own thing well and attract more tourists to Litang. This is what Gao Xiaoping emphasized many times to the "children" in his eyes during employee training: do your job well and take your time.

As the hostess of Gesangmeiduo, the first B&B in the ancient town, 51-year-old Ama Gerong is planning to expand the B&B. She plans to invest about 1 million to build a row of houses on the east side of her courtyard into a two-story building with a few more rooms.

In 2020, Ama Gerong, who was still working as a cleaner in the ancient town at the time, decided to transform her Tibetan house into a B&B. In October of that year, her "Gelsang Meiduo" B&B opened. A month later, Ding Zhen became an Internet celebrity. Because Ding Zhen has done several live broadcasts in Ama Gerong's B&B, the B&B has been fully occupied from December to now. In the six months since it opened, the room fee revenue from three rooms has reached more than 100,000 yuan, which is about the same as the revenue in the previous two or three years.

On May 25, Grandma Ge Rong was serving flowers in the living room of her B&B. Photo by Beijing News reporter Han Qinke

Diagonally opposite Gesangmeiduo, Liang Min and her friend Jiuyue were busy decorating their high-end B&B. The two once collaborated to open the first coffee shop in the ancient town, "Yunduan Yiye".

According to Liang Min, the stone and wood structure of their homestay is in the style of the Tibetan area in Sichuan, and the corridor and open balcony in the middle of the house are in the style of the ancient Tubo period. Open balconies are now rare in Tibetan areas, but they are still preserved in the Potala Palace. They hope to show the historical context of Tibetan architecture.

"B&Bs can also be museums of traditional architecture and traditional crafts." Liang Min said. In order to achieve this goal, their B&B has been built for three years. Liang Minhe stubbornly adheres to traditional craftsmanship in September. Every wooden board on the wall comes from Litang and is hand-polished by local craftsmen.

Litang’s economic development level is not high, but its consumption level is not. According to estimates in September, the cost of building a B&B of the same specifications in Chengdu may be nearly 50% lower. However, the decoration work of the B&B has not accelerated or lowered standards due to Ding Zhen's popularity and the increase in tourists, even if opening early means less investment and more income.

In Liang Min’s view, Ding Zhen not only made Litang popular, but also promoted Tibetan culture. However, the promotion of Tibetan culture cannot rely on just one person, but requires the cooperation of many people over a long period of time. Working hard, she hopes she can also contribute.

Litang’s big plan

Planning for Letong Ancient Town began as early as 2016.

Zhang Xi, head of the Litang County State-owned Assets Group Corporation, who has long been involved in the planning and construction of Litang’s tourism industry, told the Beijing News reporter that according to the plan, it is hoped that Letong Ancient Town can achieve the gathering and display of various cultures, original Goals such as ecological life scene experience, intangible cultural heritage protection and inheritance, and Tibetan cultural innovation. "The county has positioned the ancient town as an encyclopedia-style scenic spot in Tibetan areas, and we also hope to achieve this positioning." Zhang Xi said that for this reason, Letong Ancient Town plans to build a mini-museum group. Currently, 10 museums have been built in the ancient town, and in the next three to five years, 30 to 50 micro museums are planned to be built.

On May 24, Tibetan villagers living in the ancient town prayed at the prayer path on Renkang Ancient Street. Photo by Beijing News reporter Han Qinke

"The future market is a customized market." Zhang Xi wants to create a new ancient town construction model: using local Tibetan area culture for cultural innovation, launching only Products that can only be purchased in Litang; reject homogeneous products including ocarinas, African drums, silverware, and horn combs.

However, he also admitted that this plan is quite "ideal". It will take several years to build a group of mini-museums, and it may take even longer to cultivate a sense of cultural innovation. "I don't know what will happen in the future. It will take batches of people to do it." Zhang Xi always laughs and calls himself the "bad guy" in the ancient town management committee. Projects that do not fit the ancient town's blueprint will be rejected by him. outer.

For the next development of Litang, funds and talents are obstacles.

When describing the development status of Litang County, Zhang Xi quoted a jingle: the territory is like a province, the population is like a town, and the economy is like a village.

Litang County covers an area of ​​14,300 square kilometers, more than twice the area of ​​Shanghai, and has a permanent population of less than 80,000. Most local Tibetans live a self-sufficient life, and digging cordyceps and matsutake mushrooms are their main sources of income. At the beginning of 2020, Litang County officially took off the label of a poor county.

As a priority industry for poverty alleviation, tourism has been the focus of development in Litang County since 2015, but the results have been unsatisfactory. Because of its high altitude, Litang's popularity and number of tourists have always been lower than those of Kangding, Batang, Daocheng and other counties that also belong to Garze Prefecture.

"If there is not enough funds, we will build it slowly bit by bit." Zhang Xi said that Letong Ancient Town plans to invest 240 million yuan, and so far more than 80 million yuan has been invested.

For Litang, if it cannot retain talents from outside, it will cultivate its own talents.

Ren Zhenquzha, a native of Litang, originally studied veterinary medicine, but joined a tourism investment company in 2019 and became a staff member of Letong Ancient Town. Most of the colleagues who joined the company with him have similar characteristics: locals, in their early twenties, freshly graduated from high school or college, studying majors unrelated to tourism, and want to do something for the development of tourism in their hometown. They are all talents reserved by tourism investment companies for Litang tourism development.

Now, the tourism industry in Litang, which has been working hard to develop for several years, has finally arrived. Ding Zhen has become popular. He is like a gust of wind blowing through Litang, bringing opportunities for tourism development, and may also bring other changes.

"If you wait and see, it should develop very well." Zhang Xi said.

Editor Yuan Guoli

Proofreader Yang Xuli