Tai'an, where tourism has become the main industry since 1997, enjoys a high reputation as a tourist attraction. Farmhouse restaurants, which have added substantially to villagers' income, are the main tourist attraction.
More than half of the houses collapsed during the earthquake, which not only left villagers homeless, but also destroyed the source of their income. "Our villagers lost everything in the earthquake," said village head Yang Jiankang.
The newly-rebuilt houses are the villagers' homes as well as their means of life. For those who have little farmland, revenue from tourism is their only source of income.
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It is more difficult to rebuild farmhouse restaurants than ordinary homes.
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There are several plans to rebuild houses. Perhaps the best approach is through developing residential quarters and tourist projects by attracting investment. However, this will not be easy. Firstly, after a preliminary investigation, developers were not impressed by Tai'an's potential, as the prospects for tourism projects here are very limited. Secondly, polarization between rich and poor grew over years of operating previous tourist business, and wealthier villagers are not willing to share their income with others.
Another option is to let developers build houses that will be jointly owned by developers and villagers. Only a few wealthy villagers have chosen this option.
The final option is to let villagers rebuild houses themselves with the village committee in charge. However, public grants of about 20,000 yuan and a loan of no more than 60,000 yuan are far from sufficient for this purpose. Dujiangyan has thus set up a property bonding company, from which villagers can borrow larger sums of money.
Zhou, whose houses were all destroyed by the earthquake, applied for a loan of 400,000 yuan to the company, but only 300,000 yuan were approved. In addition, Zhou had to pay 30,000 yuan as a warranty.
30,000 yuan is such a huge amount for Zhou that it took him 10 days to borrow from 22 relatives and friends to put together the sum.
"It is understandable that the company required us to pay the warranty. They are enterprises, not banks. But the amount is still too much for us," Yang Jiankang said. He eventually obtained a loan of 500,000 yuan, which means he has to pay 50,000 yuan annually in interest.
So far, 32 families of Tai'an have borrowed 12 million yuan from the company, and it is estimated that 40 million yuan will be needed to complete the reconstruction. Villagers are finding the debts hard to service.
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As village head, Yang Jiankang is under mounting pressure to lead villagers in restoring Tai'an's tourism.
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As well as the loan issue, Yang is now facing a new challenge. As an exemplary village of Dujiangyan, Tai'an reformed its committee in March and set up a new agency, a collective economic cooperative. In addition, the senior authorities of the village have recently been reorganized. At the monthly meeting, members of the authority discussed various issues of the village and came to a series of decisions.
With the new organization in place, the work of managing the village has become more flexible. By attracting investment, Tai'an has been able to spend one million yuan repairing roads, the biggest expense the village has ever undertaken.
(China.org.cn by Xiang Bin May 11, 2009)
