Longji Rice Terraces 2 - Local Politics
Learning about how local politics are impacting the development path of the tourist area
This essay was originally published in two threads on Twitter on August 20, 2021. I have combined those two threads into a single essay here, editing slightly and reorganizing along the way. This essay is Part 2 of my experiences in Longji Rice Terraces, following Part 1 here.
Today I had more fascinating chats with the locals. Last time, I wrote about the family that runs the guesthouse, with most of my information gathered by talking to the wife in the family, but today I got to chat with her husband. It turns out my hardworking guesthouse boss is also the village leader.
I had a suspicion he was some kind of local VIP when I saw him receive a delegation from the Guilin tourism development company that invested in developing this scenic area, along with a batch of college students to whom he gave a speech. I thought they wanted his perspective about running the guesthouse. I figured it would be interesting, so I sat at a table nearby and eavesdropped…
It turns out their discussion was far more interesting than I could have guessed. The students are all studying tourism management, and they were in the middle of a debate about whether it would be worthwhile to get Longji Rice Terraces upgraded to a 5A tourist attraction (vs. its current level of 4A). If you aren’t aware, 5A is the crème de la crème of Chinese tourist attractions, a distinction that is only earned via a strict application and evaluation process. There are only around 300 5A attractions in China, compared to 1300 4A attractions. So, getting 5A would be a big deal.
After the delegation left, I cornered the guesthouse boss to ask him what that was all about, and luckily he was feeling was chatty. I found out his name is Mr. Yu, and he is a local Big Deal, being both 村主任 and 村支书, (i.e. village mayor and Party Branch Secretary). This makes him the highest-level government official in Dazhai Village, and a popular one too! He says he won the last election with over 90% of the vote (total population around 1000). At the village administrative level in China, leaders are selected via popular vote, which may be surprising to some.
Mr. Yu is a local guy who went away to Nanning (the capital of Guangxi) for college, and then returned to live and work in the village, in contrast to many others from his generation. He says he’s been so successful in the popular election because he puts the needs of his villagers above everyone else, especially the outsiders. In this case, the “outsiders” refers to the county-level government and the development company from Guilin that operates the scenic area. Basically, he’s highest level of defense that the villagers can vote for in order to represent their interests against the outsiders. His immediate bosses, the county governor or party secretary, will probably be careerists, most interested in seeing the county’s GDP rise so they can tick boxes and continue moving up the promotion ladder to bigger and better posts, but he has no such ambitions. He just wants to make sure his people are taken care of.
I ask “What if the county government is a local from here? Wouldn’t they take care of the locals too?” He said “Actually we hope they are not a local…if they are a local, they will have too many connections and friendships here. They will build up too much power and paralyze development.”
Anyway, back to the question about going for 5A. He's VERY against the idea. The 5A rating requires huge upfront investment to secure. He estimated ~150M USD. If the development company spends that much money on upgrading Longji Rice Terraces, they will expect to see a return on investment. The massive influx of tourists that will come with the 5A rating, and that will be necessary to actually earn back the investment, will overwhelm the village. He doesn't think their infrastructure or natural environment can handle it, and they don't have facilities befitting a 5A attraction anyway.
This is something the development company and county gov't are really pushing for, and he's fighting them on. He knows the county gov't dislikes him, and he doesn't care, because the choices that make him unpopular at that level also let him win the village elections. He thinks he's effective at the local level precisely because he doesn't want a career in government. He just wants to have a successful guesthouse and see the village do well, while preserving their way of life and natural environment to the maximum extent possible. So far, having come here several times over the years, I think he’s done a great job. I wonder what would happen to this place without him…
This was the original end of the first thread. It continues below.
The next day, I actually got to find out.
On that next day, we took a 10km hike over the back rice fields, bringing us to the next village over, called Ping’an. On the surface, Ping’an is quite similar to Dazhai, although the locals are Zhuang ethnicity, not Yao ethnicity. The mountains around there are more steep and impressive, but the rice terraces are not as pretty, in my opinion. They ain’t ugly neither though.
We arrived in Ping’an after a tough hike through an overgrown path that was totally washed out in some places. Tired, we snapped a few pics and then asked a local guy closing up his ice cream stand if he was open-minded to make a quick buck driving us back to Dazhai, which of course he was. The road back is a winding 25km canyon road, which gave us plenty of time to talk.
Our driver/ice cream vendor was a Ping’an native, young, college-educated, and back to the village for six years now since his graduation. He told us from his perspective, things are pretty bad in Ping’an. Not only is Covid hurting their business, but they know their scenery isn't quite as good as Dazhai's, therefore less tourists, and many villagers feel they're getting screwed by "the company" (the one that develops the scenic area).
He said the company had recently added a touring car to bring tourists from the parking lot directly to the mountaintop. It bypasses the village and removes a bunch of opportunities for the villagers to make money selling goods, carrying bags, driving tourists themselves, etc. The company just added this feature suddenly, without consulting the villagers. They get a cut of the proceeds, but it's less than what they could earn before, and they are unhappy no one asked them what they thought. Their elected mayor/branch secretary didn't do anything to protect their rights.
I knew that Dazhai had recently added a cable car, which sounded similar to their situation, so I asked about it. He said "ah yeah, but the villagers at Dazhai are very unified. They negotiated with the tourist company that if they were to accept the cable car, they would need to get a better cut of the tickets". Nice job Mr. Yu.
By contrast, it seems their branch secretary had either caved to pressure or just minded his own profits, so the villagers of Ping'an now have to accept this touring car that bypasses the village. Overall, he said he's quite disappointed with the development of Ping'an. He used to make good money leading hiking tours between Dazhai and Ping'an (the route we hiked) and running a coffee shop. Now Covid has cratered his businesses, the development company is making life harder for the village, and he wonders if he made the right choice to return to Longji.
Of course, things overall for his family are better than before the region opened up to the outside world. For instance, he mentioned that when he was 8, he ate nothing but braised bamboo shoots and rice for 3 months straight because there was no other food. Today, he still can’t stand the taste of bamboo shoots. For another example, he mentioned that children now have better opportunities for education. It’s still tough for the village children, since they to have to go to school over 1 hour away in the county-level city. Parents have to rent or buy a place nearby, to accompany their children while they study. It's expensive and tiring to get the kids an education. But at least they can go to school now.
His story about his frustrations with the development of Ping'An really highlighted for me how crucial the personal character of the village leader is. The villagers are of course quite weak individually without a leader to unify and speak for their rights vs. "the company.” Especially if that company is invested in/has the support of the local county government and is primarily motivated by profitable operations.
When I got back to the guesthouse that night, I told Mr. Yu that I had found out the villagers of Ping'an are unhappy. He immediately knew I was talking about the situation with the sightseeing car (kinda get the feeling he knows everything going on around the scenic area). His response summarized the conclusion I had already reached myself nicely:
“Ah, yeah the Ping'an villagers are taking a loss on that sightseeing car, for sure. The issue is their branch secretary. He's just not tough enough".
Thank goodness Mr. Yu is tough enough, I guess. If Longji Rice Terraces was allowed to develop and commercialize to the scale that I’m sure the development company would prefer, I very much doubt I would enjoy coming back so much. I think it has achieved an ideal balance of development and authenticity already, where the locals are clearly living better lives than before the development of the tourist area, but without sacrificing too much in terms of their quality of life. More than anything, I think Mr. Yu is to thank for this. What a champion.
This concludes the second part of my travel to Longji Rice Terraces. Thanks for reading!
Mr. Yu is a local guy who went away to Nanjing (the capital of Guangxi) for college. There's a typo here. The provincial capital should be Nanning