Most foreigners who come to study in China may have heard about some famous ancient towns with long history such as Lijiang Ancient Town and Dali Ancient Town. Today, I will introduce another one you may be not familiar with but also has a long history, that is, the Niujie Town in Yiliang County of Zhaotong city.
The realistic environment of Niujie Town is getting worse. Teachers may tell you something about it when you learn Mandarin in Kunming city that the town was a vital traffic center. However, with the improvement of modern transportation system, it is no longer as prosperous as it was. The long-term backward development makes the problem of survival become more prominent.
Therefore, to promote the development of this town, the government decided to rebuild into an ancient town. The reconstruction of some towns in Chengdu and Shanghai provide us some referable construction methods. Learners who study Chinese in Yunnan may be told that the best approach to build an ancient town is to add a commercial management model into the renovation of modeling after the antique on the basis of a historical town with remains of ancient culture.
Indeed, this method is effective in revitalizing the economy and expanding tourism. But foreigners who learn Chinese in China may know that there are also some people destroyed the original building of community and life style of local people in the name of “rebuilding the town”. Niujie Town is a town with a history of over 1,600 years. During the process of rebuilding this town, new model was applied to protect every historic building and recover some of the important buildings with historical and cultural value.
It is a good method to save itself by taking the advantage of original resource development and reconstruction to highlight tourist attractions. The methods of reconstructing Niujie Town may cause conflict and confusion. However, when you learn Chinese in China, you will see the local government takes many measures to solve arising subsequent issues of the transformation.
If foreigners learn Mandarin Chinese and have the chance to go there, they in the city of Kunming, they will see that there is a constantly running river next to the town. Along the street, many buildings were rebuilt and became new. After knowing the government invests a large amount of money to reconstruct the town to make it into a cultural tourism ancient town, many local people devoted themselves to the construction voluntarily.
However, facing the removal and rebuilding, some people hesitate, some people look forward. Foreigners study Mandarin Chinese in Yunnan and they can see that the buildings in the town really have special characteristics. For some of the buildings, people can’t remember the years of building. Most of them only know that they inherited the houses from the elder generations. The old houses are all built with wood materials. There is no other places have so many wood construction houses.
Niujie Town has a very long history. Since the Eastern Han Period, it has been functioning as a main route for people communication because of the unique geographic location. But recently, it gradually loses the attraction to the outside people because of the development of modern transportation. But the ancient buildings soon attract the government’s attention. In order not to marginalize the town, the government strives to protect them when developing the local economy. Chinese teacher from summer program in China would tell you that the goal is to make it into a tourist attraction by the year of 2012.
Since March of this year, the construction of Niujie Ancient Town began vigorously. During the process, the government was giving back all kinds of compensation funds to people. One point foreigners in Chinese learning programs should know is that the government ask for a wide range of public opinions to protect the public’s interests with the maximum limit.
It is reported to those foreign learners from volunteer program in China that the uniform pseudo-classic architectures will be built on the sites of the former buildings. Besides, some old architecture with great historical and cultural value will be restored. The government wishes that the tourists will see some architecture with Yunnan characteristics in the near future when they come to here.
During the process of economic growth and being developed and utilized, we hope that Niujie Ancient Town will continue to maintain the existing cultural style, thus bringing real benefits to the local people.