Mangjian: The new story of a traditional rice-growing village

A bird’s-eye view of rice fields next to Mangjian village in southwest Yunnan province

Mangjian is a settlement of Dai people in Gengma, southwest Yunnan’s Lincang city. Hidden in mountains and gorges, this place is primarily characterized by its mild climate and rich natural resources.

For hundreds of years, local residents have been living a secluded life in which rice, tea and sugarcanes are grown for self reliance.

Villagers of Mangjian work in the fields

As Nan Laosan recalls, some villagers couldn’t even afford grain seeds in the late 1990s. So he, as the village head at that time, had to purchase seeds himself and then give them to each household. “But difficult days have gone now,” he says.

    

Tourists raft on lake near the village

“When people have enough food to eat, what I think next is how to make them richer,” Nan Laosan tells us.

Since 2011, Mangjian has started to develop rural tourism based on its long rice-growing history of over a thousand years. Grape and passion fruit have also joined rice to become major produces of Mangjian more recently.  

Villagers of Mangjian work in the fields

As the number of visitors and tourists goes up, agritourism in the village begins to flourish.

There are 5 restaurants and 21 guesthouses in Mangjian at the moment. During this year’s National Day Holiday in October, it received as many as 1,120 tourists in a day.

The golden rice fields in Mangjian

Fu Maicheng, for instance, is the owner of a restaurant in the village. Featuring an interior design of local Dai people, his place has gained much popularity among tourists.

“What I hope to do is not simply to prepare food, but bring quality local produces of our village to visitors and tourists,” he says. “Only by this means, Mangjian can be known by more people, and every villager’s livelihood can be ultimately improved.”

An aerial picture of rice fields in Mangjian village

Inspired by Fu’s Maicheng’s restaurant, Nan Laosan is now considering rebuilding more houses in the village and turning them into traditional Dai-style residences as new attractions to tourists.

Reporting by Liu Dong and Ding Ning (Xinhua);trans-editing by Wang Jingzhong