Your current location:HOME >entertainment >'Drifters' Bring New Vitality to Ancient Xinjiang City 正文
TIME:2024-05-21 13:39:38 Source: Internet compilationEdit:entertainment
Contact Us HomeNewsHighlightACWF NewsSocietyWom
Residents are seen in an alley in the ancient city of Kashgar in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, May 6, 2021. [Xinhua/Hu Huhu] |
URUMQI, March 25 (Xinhua) — The ancient city of Kashgar, in southern Xinjiang, is home to one of the largest surviving group of earthen buildings in the world. Over the past decade, a group of young newcomers have settled down and injected vitality into the 400-year-old city.
Guoguo, a former soft furnishing designer in Shanghai, is one of these "drifters." After visiting Kashgar on a sketching expedition in 2018, he fell in love with the ancient city and decided to stay.
Now he and his wife run a store selling self-designed cultural products using traditional art skills and patterns.
For Guoguo, the historic city that stands on the ancient Silk Road is a living museum integrating both Eastern and Western civilizations. His understanding of the ancient city is embedded in his own artworks: Uygur patterns printed on the canvas, drawings of traditional dwellings on the paper made of morus bark, postcards with images of local musicians playing the rawap and the tambourine, as well as clay figurines of middle-aged Uygur men.
In 2019, he and many painting enthusiasts founded the "Urban Sketchers of Kashgar," a non-governmental organization aiming to portray the changing appearance of the ancient city. Now nearly 300 participants are involved in the organization, of which more than 100 are based in Kashgar.
To Guoguo and his peers, the former look of the ancient city was beyond belief. In an area of about 8 square km, there used to be over 200,000 people crammed into the primitive dwellings, which were vulnerable to natural disasters.
Kashgar's facelift began in 2010, when local authorities invested over 7 billion yuan (about 1.1 billion U.S. dollars) to refurbish the ancient city.
Within five years, 49,000 dilapidated houses were renovated under the premise of best preserving their original aesthetic. Today, the city not only provides local residents a more cozy, safer life, but also helps boost the local tourism industry, attracting new dwellers like Guoguo.
Li Jianhui, from Beijing, opened a 10-room hostel in the ancient city of Kashgar last year. "It's rare to have such a well-preserved ancient city that embodies the cultural elements of ethnic minority groups in China," said Li.
Yu Xiao and Wang Yunwang, from the central provinces of Hubei and Hunan respectively, are a couple. Yu provides photography services for tourists while Wang is a designer making traditional gold and silver jewelry. "We see great potential for the tourism industry in the ancient city," said Yu.
In the first 11 months of 2021, the ancient city of Kashgar received nearly 2.3 million tourists, up 183 percent year on year, with tourism revenue soaring by a whopping 486 percent. Many local residents have converted their houses into B&Bs, restaurants or handicraft shops to ride the wave of the burgeoning tourism industry, and see their life getting better and better.
(Source: Xinhua)
32.3KPlease understand that womenofchina.cn,a non-profit, information-communication website, cannot reach every writer before using articles and images. For copyright issues, please contact us by emailing: [email protected]. The articles published and opinions expressed on this website represent the opinions of writers and are not necessarily shared by womenofchina.cn.
Who is Jacob Zuma, the former South African president disqualified from next week's election?2024-05-21 13:09
New festival leisure modes boost domestic tourism2024-05-21 13:05
People take part in 52024-05-21 13:01
Newborn golden snub2024-05-21 12:54
Celebrity birthdays for the week of May 262024-05-21 12:37
Lotus flowers at West Lake of Hanoi, Vietnam2024-05-21 11:50
International contemporary art fair held in Ankara2024-05-21 11:35
Xi's Three Visits to Wuhan2024-05-21 11:26
Bella Hadid goes braless in a thigh2024-05-21 11:12
Yellow River's Hukou Waterfall returns to full force2024-05-21 11:08
Storms damage homes in Oklahoma and Kansas. But in Houston, most power is restored2024-05-21 13:37
City view of China's Chongqing Municipality2024-05-21 13:37
Sparkling night at Minyue water town in Fuzhou2024-05-21 13:37
Scenery of Xiling Gorge amid the misty rain2024-05-21 12:47
Minnesota Uber and Lyft driver pay package beats deadline to win approval in Legislature2024-05-21 12:44
Spring scenery in Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in China's Chongqing2024-05-21 12:24
Xi Sends Congratulatory Letter on 50th Anniversary of Cooperation Between China, WIPO2024-05-21 12:19
Yellow River's Hukou Waterfall returns to full force2024-05-21 12:13
Children are evacuated from school 'during an exam' after threat made via email2024-05-21 12:11
Autumn scenery at Pofengling Scenic Area in Beijing2024-05-21 11:49