Village in Yunnan embraces renewed vitality after relocation project

Xiaomandi is a village mainly inhabited by people of the Dai ethnic group, located in Gejiu city, Honghe Hani and Yi Autonomous Prefecture in southwest China’s Yunnan Province. In the past, the village was poverty-stricken and the local living environment was inhospitable.

Aerial photo shows Xiaomandi village. (Photo/Xu Bin)

Thanks to a relocation project, the village is nowadays full of renewed vitality. The local living environment has improved significantly and people’s sense of well-being has been further enhanced.

Walking around the village, one can see flowers growing luxuriantly on the roadside, neatly arranged houses of the Dai ethnic group, wide and clean roads, and various types of fruit trees that are being grown around people’s houses.

“Mandi,” meaning a village by the riverside in the Dai language, sits on the bank of the Honghe River. There are 216 residents in the village, and 90 percent of them are people of the Dai ethnic group.

In 2009, plans were launched for building a hydropower station in the locality, with Xiaomandi set to become the site of a reservoir for the project based on the construction plan.

Aerial photo shows Xiaomandi village. (Photo/Xu Bin)

Taking the project as an opportunity, the municipal and township governments decided to relocate the villagers to another site. They chose an area that is 100 meters away from the former site of the village and built 46 houses there, while providing the new village with all the necessary infrastructure, including water and electricity supply facilities as well as hardened roads, among others. All these efforts have helped to improve the living environment of the local residents.

Bai Zhicheng is the secretary of the Party branch of Xiaomandi village. According to Bai, there are three types of houses that have been built for them in the village, including those covering about 60 square meters, those being more than 80 square meters and those being more than 100 square meters. Each person in the village was granted a subsidy worth 13,000 yuan ($2,042).

“My house is more than 80 square meters. To buy the house, the government offered us 39,000 yuan in subsidies, and we received a payment of more than 20,000 yuan from the government, which equals the value of our old house. In the end, it turned out that we only spent a little more than 20,000 yuan of our own savings to buy the new house,” said Bai.

To maintain a clean and beautiful living environment, the village encourages its residents to clean the village on specific days. It also lets the villagers partake in a village-wide campaign, in which the villagers clean their own houses and courtyards and then select from among themselves who did the best job in cleaning their house. The village also established a reward mechanism to raise and enhance people’s awareness of hygiene and sanitation management.

Aerial photo shows Xiaomandi village. (Photo/Xu Bin)

To protect the ecosystem of the Honghe River, the village strictly bans activities such as catching fish through illicit means or dumping garbage improperly in undesignated places. Meanwhile, sand mining activities and quarrying are also prohibited in the locality.

The municipal and township governments also built tourism facilities in the village so as to increase incomes for local residents through the development of a tourism industry. According to Bai, the village held two water-splashing festivals for two consecutive years before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. More than 10,000 tourists visited the village during the festivals. Thanks to the festival, many local residents secured jobs by providing services for incoming tourists.

Aerial photo shows Xiaomandi village. (Photo/Xu Bin)