Village visited by Xi embarks on journey of rural revitalization

Aerial photo taken on July 24, 2021 shows the view of a relocation site for poverty alleviation at Huawu village in Qianxi city, southwest China's Guizhou Province. (Xinhua/Yang Wenbin)

Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Huawu village in Qianxi city, southwest China’s Guizhou Province prior to the Spring Festival in 2021, calling on locals to push forward rural revitalization.

During his inspection tour of the village nestled deep in the mountains in Bijie city, Guizhou, Xi visited the home of ethnic Miao villager Zhao Yuxue and made "huangba," a local dessert made of sticky rice, together with Zhao’s family members, who moved into a new home thanks to a local resettlement project aimed at lifting poor people out of poverty through relocation from environmentally fragile areas.

Xi urged local officials to develop rural industries so that people can find jobs near their homes and take care of their family members.

Over the past two years, Huawu village has developed rural tourism by leveraging its tourism resources, and made cattle breeding, ginger planting and the making of huangba into pillar industries that bring wealth to locals.

Zhao, like many other residents in the village, has run an agritainment business.

Xi also paid a visit to a Miao embroidery workshop that helps villagers increase incomes, expressed approval of the traditional handicraft, and called for the inheritance of traditional ethnic culture including Miao embroidery.

Yang Wenli is the head of the workshop. Yang learned Miao embroidery when she was a child and started her own business back in her hometown after working outside the village for several years.

Yang still clearly remembers Xi’s visit to the workshop and feels confident in being able to pass down Miao embroidery.

She has hired several designers to develop new Miao embroidery products, collaborated with a garment company in Guangzhou city, south China’s Guangdong Province, to integrate Miao embroidery elements into modern clothes, and led embroiderers to expand online sales channels.

In the past two years, the workshop completed over 1,000 orders each year, with an annual output value of more than one million yuan (about $148,000), helping over 50 women embrace a new life.