Current location:entertainment >>
'Drifters' Bring New Vitality to Ancient Xinjiang City
entertainment8People have gathered around
IntroductionContact Us HomeNewsHighlightACWF NewsSocietyWom ...
- Home
- News
- People
- In-depth
- ACWF
'Drifters' Bring New Vitality to Ancient Xinjiang City
March 28, 2022Residents 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.
Comments
Magazines
Projects
- 2023 Women Science and Technology Innovation Pioneer...
Photos
- People Enjoy Blooming Tulips in Jinan, East...
- Flowers Bloom Across China in Spring
Special Coverage
Tags:
Reprint:Friends are welcome to share on the Internet, but please indicate the source of the article when reprinting it.“International Insight news portal”。http://reunion.graduatethesis.org/content-63f099861.html
Related articles
Justin Timberlake set to bring his The Forget Tomorrow World Tour to Australia in 2025
entertainmentJustin Timberlake is set to bring his The Forget Tomorrow World Tour to Australia next year.Daily Ma ...
Read moreCandidates from Hong Kong, Macao shortlisted for China's new taikonaut selection
entertainment(Xinhua) 13:52, October 25, 2023JIUQUAN, Oct. 25 (Xinhua) -- More than 20 candidates have been short ...
Read more12 killed in boat capsize accident in North China; boat owner detained
entertainment(Global Times) 10:58, April 15, 2024Photo: China Central TelevisionA total of 12 passengers were kil ...
Read more
Popular articles
- Candice Swanepoel stuns in a form
- Keanu Reeves and longtime girlfriend Alexandra Grant put on a loved
- Chinese institutes publish complete Nipponbare rice reference genome
- Jamie Laing pays tribute to wife Sophie Habboo as they celebrate their first wedding anniversary
- Pentagon vows to keep weapons moving to Ukraine as Kyiv faces a renewed assault by Russia
- Gene Herrick, AP photographer who covered the Korean War and civil rights, dies at 97
Latest articles
Dodgers acquire pitcher Yohan Ramírez from Mets for cash
China launches new remote sensing satellite
Meet the Real Housewives star who spent £25m on a 1,000
China ranks second in world in terms of computing power
Tamara Ecclestone is criticised as her daughter Fifi, 10, heads out wearing heavy make
Gene Herrick, AP photographer who covered the Korean War and civil rights, dies at 97
LINKS
- Podcast pick: The best audio show to listen to now
- The hotel room on WHEELS! Self
- How to see a once
- Lazy or genius? It's the gadget that's becoming a must
- Jessi Campbell: Little girl's brave battle after being born with 1kg cyst on her arm
- Want a healthy dog? Vets reveal the 10 extreme body conformations owners should AVOID including flat
- New Yorker gives hilarious reaction to being underwhelmed by solar eclipse
- What is Havana syndrome? Symptoms explained after bombshell 60 Minutes episode
- How Christopher Nolan couldn't have won his first Oscar without his family's support
- Early man's best friend was the fox as the animal was domesticated by humans, research suggests