PRUEBA DE PENETRACIÓN DE COLORANTE

Photo 3.3 Photo 3.4

3.62 Yuehua Street

At present, Yuehua Street has a population of 120 from 28 families. The majority of the local residents are descendent of the ancient Taoists families, and they have been lived here for many generations in the ancient Hui Zhou style Taoist houses (within the homes can be seen the Ancient Taoists’ names scratched in the walls). Most of the families are related to each other. This is because previously the village used to be very poor, and no girls wanted to live

Temple

Photo 3.6 Hengjiang River

& Ancient Bridge Photo 3. 5 Cliff inscriptions

Yuehua Street

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in the village; thus men could not find “outside girls” with whom to get married, and so only married with their neighbours. Before Qiyun developed as a tourist attraction, the residents mainly lived on cutting wood, planting tea, providing food and accommodation for pilgrims, and some also worked outside. Moreover, during the Cultural Revolution, the residents on the mountain suffered a lot; they lost their temples, pilgrims, as hence much of their income.

They only have forest lands, no farmland; and it is difficult for them to feed a large population. Thus, some of them borrowed food from the villages below the mountain;

otherwise, they simply suffered from hunger. Luckily, after Qiyun opened its door to visitors in 1980s, life on the mountain began to change. Every family became involved in a small tourism business, and they began to discover the value of developing tourism. At present, the Yuehua village is considered to be the richest village in Qiyun Town, even in Xiuning County. Families are now rich enough to buy houses in Xiuning County, some have even purchased a private car. Their children always go to good schools in the County rather than in local schools. It is estimated by the local authority that there are 260 people directly involved in the Qiyun tourism industry; of whom 28.5% to 30% are from Yuehua village (the tourism authority has a policy that village residents have priority over other village residents for employment in tourism). Those residents are mostly engaged in basic jobs like selling incense, being a tour guide, operating restaurants and souvenir shops, and being cleaners. The average annual family income in this village is now approximately 70,000-80,00RMB per annum, some higher income families may reach 200,000-300,000 RMB (X. J. Yao, personal communication, November, 4, 2011). The following table 3.7 describes different jobs in Yuehua village.

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Table 3.6 Jobs For Yuehua residents

Job title Photo Job description

Tour 24 Guide

All of the tour guides are selected from residents on the mountain. There are 23 female tour guides and only 1 male tour guide. As local tour guides, they do not need to get a Tour Guide Qualification Certificate as a registered tour guide, they only need to pass a simple test which is carried out by the tourism company. They do not have fixed working hours and their working hours is up to them. They charge normally 60 RMB, which was increased by 10 RMB in 2010. The average age of tour guides should be between 30 and 35 years old. The majority of tour guides only have middle school or high school education background. Thus, no one can use English to guide foreign visitors.

Incense sticks seller 22

All of the incense stick sellers are residents on the mountain. Almost all are old ladies. Only during holidays will school aged young girls sell incense to earn pocket money. Those sellers are supposed to wait at one spot and take shifts to sell incense sticks, but they always prefer to follow tourists and keep asking them to buy incense, which is a nuisance to visitors. The profits for selling incense is quite high, the purchase price for every pack of incense is less than 1 RMB, while they will sell at 10 RMB. If visitors bargain the price or buy more than one pack, some sellers may lower the price to 5 RMB.

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Fortune-teller 7 person

There were 3 fortune tellers in 2010, but in 2012 they now number 7. Among them, only one is a local resident on the mountain, two are from the villages below the mountain, while other 4 have come from other cities in Anhui province. All are male. Those 7 fortune tellers have different methods to predict future events, such as use of the tortoise-shell, reading people’s palms, and from coppers. Their standard charge is very interesting, some will charge a visitor a high price if he is said to have good future;

while some fortune teller will charge visitor at mountain, but in 2012 only 7. Among those who left, 4 cleaners were forced to leave their job by the new company because all were above 50 years of age. The new company wanted to use cleaners below that age.

Another 3 staff quit the job because of the hard work and low wages. At present remaining staff work longer hours than before, but their revenue also increased from 800 RMB to 1200 RMB per month.

Taoist 14 require them to pray and bless them. But the Taoism rite is very expensive, from 1,000RMB to 100,000 RMB. The Taoist revenue mainly comes from the donation of pilgrims, the fees of Taoist rituals, and

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some small commercial activities like selling a blessed amulet.

Small business owners ( 23 restaurants 8 hostels 5 souvenir shops 2 antique shops 2 tea shops)

There are 23 out of 28 families operating family restaurants on the mountain. The restaurant sizes vary from 20-30 places to 200-250. There are 8 places providing accommodation. Except for one hostel which attracted outsider investment and had high quality facilities and hygienic conditions such as private bathrooms in every room and had internet access; the other 7 hostels are basic and of a low standard. Thus, the room rate in those hostels is very low, only 40-50 RMB ($8-$10) per night; for the pilgrim even lower prices existed at 10-20 RMB

($2-$4) per night.

Chairman 6 person

Previously, there were more than 20 chair carriers in this village 10 years ago, who came from other villages below the mountain. However, more and more visitors prefer to walk rather than taking a chair; thus, at present only 6 remain, and they only work only in the high season.

Source: Wang (2011); Li (2011)

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