Turkmen student impressed with revival of riverine town

TAIYUAN, Oct. 25 (Xinhua) -- In an old-timey building in Qikou, an ancient riverine town along the Yellow River, China's second-longest river, Charyyev Nuryagdy and his Chinese partner participated in a livestream show introducing local farm products in early October.

The 25-year-old student from Turkmenistan, who studies international politics at Shanxi University, toured several regions along the Yellow River in north China's Shanxi Province several months ago.

To Nuryagdy, of all the places he had been to, Qikou was the most impressive one, especially the unique Shanxi merchant culture that appreciates integrity and hard work. That is also the reason he came back to Qikou this time.

The Yellow River used to play an important shipping role in old times, when merchants unloaded goods such as fur, wool and herbs from boats coming upriver and switched to land transportation to further deliver them to cites like Taiyuan, Beijing, and Tianjin. Such a geographical advantage made Qikou an important port until the 1970s.

Qikou's glory gradually faded in the following decades as the transportation network improved along the Yellow River area.

Yet thanks to the rise of the industries of cultural tourism and e-commerce, the former trade and transport hub began to thrive again.

The livestream show Nuryagdy participated in was one of the highlights of the seventh tourism and culture festival to promote the sale of red dates in Qikou.

Guo Youshun, who grows more than 10 mu (about 0.66 hectares) of date trees in Kaiyang Village, told Nuryagdy that red dates are expected to bring his family an income of about 30,000 yuan (about 4,186 U.S. dollars) this year.

During his preliminary survey, Nuryagdy found that local processing enterprises had further extended the production chain of agri-food.

"There are multiple higher value-added products such as date snacks and drinks," Nuryagdy said. "In the past, people could not even secure enough food and clothing by farming, but now, their living standards have improved significantly, and some even bought houses in the county seat."

Thanks to improving ecological environment and better infrastructure, tourism has become the pillar industry in Qikou. Li Shixi, an online celebrity, is one of the residents engaged in tourism.

"Running a bed-and-breakfast (B&B) and serving as a model for sketchers can bring in more than 100,000 yuan a year, much better than farming," Li, 68, told Nuryagdy.

Currently more than a tenth of Qikou's population is engaged in tourism-related business. The ancient town is now home to over 50 homestays.

"I also noticed that more young people are returning to start businesses, which adds vitality to the ancient town," said Nuryagdy, whose two-hour livestream show eventually attracted more than 200,000 viewers.

"With the development of new businesses, the future of Qikou will be even better," Nuryagdy said.