Current location:World Wander news portal > sport
'Drifters' Bring New Vitality to Ancient Xinjiang City
World Wander news portal2024-05-09 06:11:46【sport】4People 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
Address of this article:http://coralseaislands.whetstonetavern.com/content-52b199883.html
Very good!(751)
Related articles
- Eurovision 2024 semi
- The Chicago Bears are poised to draft Caleb Williams with the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL draft
- Judge denies request for Bob Baffert
- Punjab Kings run out of steam as Mumbai Indians win by 9 runs
- Another tennis player suspended for corruption linked to match
- Kentucky guard Reed Sheppard enters NBA draft
- Trump loses bid to halt Jan. 6 lawsuits while he fights criminal charges in the 2020 election case
- Nevada Supreme Court rulings hand setbacks to gun
- Keith Urban is back in Sin City! Country singer announces third Las Vegas residency after 2021 show
- Tibetan political leader ‘optimistic’ about passage of US bill on Tibet — Radio Free Asia
Popular articles
- Former Daytona 500 winner McDowell will leave Front Row Motorsports for Spire in 2025
- Panthers have many needs entering NFL draft, but no first
- Georgia governor signs income tax cuts as property tax measure heads to November ballot
- Virginia school bus hits DMV building, injures driver and two students, officials say
Recommended
Jessica Biel reveals her unusual secret to getting red
Kansas GOP congressman Jake LaTurner is not running again, citing family reasons
Panthers have many needs entering NFL draft, but no first
Woman dies after riding on car's hood and falling off, police say
UK weather: Last month was the hottest April on record worldwide since 1940
Sheetz convenience store chain hit with discrimination lawsuit
Group condemns 'humiliating searches' by security at Barcelona stadium
Brazil's president creates two new Indigenous territories, bringing total in his term to 10
Links
- Trump declines to endorse national abortion ban
- What to expect in the Alaska and Wyoming Democratic presidential contests
- Robert MacNeil, creator of PBS 'NewsHour, dead at 93
- Republican Sen. Rick Scott softens his abortion position after Florida Supreme Court ruling
- New Jersey officials drop appeal of judge's order to redraw Democratic primary ballot
- Conservatives compelled by Trump are pushing Nebraska to adopt a winner
- Conservatives compelled by Trump are pushing Nebraska to adopt a winner
- Biden heads to his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, to talk about taxes
- Republican Sen. Rick Scott softens his abortion position after Florida Supreme Court ruling
- Andrei Kuzmenko's hat trick leads Calgary to a 6