The longtime primitive and unsettled life of about one million herdsmen in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region come to an end as they have moved into brand-new residential areas with the aid of local governments.

"This marks a dramatic change of their traditional nomadic life pattern, passing from one generation to another," said Hubetolla Hasayin, director of the animal husbandry department of the region.

For thousands of years, Xinjiang is a region where the northern nomadic nationalities live and procreate.

The winter in Xinjiang usually lasts for about half a year with frequent hitting of blizzards so herdsmen there were forced to migrate from one place to another all the year round to search for fodder and water for their livestock.

To sooth or end their difficult life, the regional government has helped the herdsmen improve fodder with mixed ingredients and gather the livestock to uniformly feed.

The government also has built new residential areas for herdsmen to dwell in. According to local government statistics, 78 percent of the 1.29 million herdsmen in Xinjiang have moved into new houses to start a settle-down life at the end of 2004.

A 35-year-old Kazak herdsman named Jeanspeeke has recently moved into a new brick house in the county of Burqin in Altay Prefecture. The shabby adobe house where he lived in the past becomes a sheep pen now.

The government equips solar or wind electric generator for nearly every household of the herdsmen, Jeanspeeke said. He can watch television every day and ride a motorcycle or take a car instead of riding a horse, he said.

Taypark Quhaive, Kazak herdsman, said he sold some of his livestock and built a brick house in Qinghe County of Altay Prefecture. With the help of the local government, he has access to tap water and power supply and his house was equipped with cable television.

"The life was very difficult in the past," said the 65-year-oldKazak herdsman. "We used to live in yurt and wander with 30 sheep and two cows. The cold weather left me a serious lumbago," said the old man, recalling the hard life.

The resettled life is much easier, Taypark said. And their ways of life have also changed. His two sons do not live on herding and they have held jobs in the nearby Takshiken Port, he said.

According to a local official named Hubetolla, the resettled life has made more than one million herdsmen discard the primitive production mode. The official said the herdsmen now have their own houses, livestock pens and a large stretch of fodder field. The death rate of the livestock also has reduced from 8 percent in the1970s to less than 1 percent today.

In addition, governments of all levels have built schools in the herdsmen residential areas, ending the long history of "horseback schooling."
 
(Xinhua News Agency August 9, 2005)