Diggingtochina’s Weblog

UPDATE: From the LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-qiang21-2008may21,0,3109044.story

This is just to give a a bit of an idea of what one place was like at the epicentre before Monday’s earthquake. Taoping is about 20 minutes by car from Wenchuan and Xinhua has put it on the list of damaged communities. But there was no reference to the extent of the damage. This is from 2004:

A trip to the Taoping Qiang village in northwest Sichuan province is not for the weak of stomach. The 164 kilometres of sealed road between it and the provincial capital of Chengdu covers some spectacular mountain passes but the hairpin bends can leave you a little green around the gills. That said, even if you lose your lunch, it’s worth going there just for dinner.

The residents of Taoping belong to the Qiang nationality, a group that has clung to the hillsides of Sichuan’s Aba prefecture for about two millennia. Traces of their presence have been unearthed in the shape of 3000-year-old inscribed bones and tortoise shells. They number more than a hundred thousand and mainly live in three counties – Wenchuan, Li and Mao. Legend has it that they used to be a nomadic community of sheepherders before migrating from Gansu and Qinghai to the northwest part of Sichuan. Now they are riding the tourism wave.

The village sits in Li county and is one of the centrepieces of the region’s tourism push. It is described as a pueblo and does look like it could have been transplanted from New Mexico. It’s an elaborate network of flat-roofed houses and defensive towers built from layers of slate-like rock. Bunches of corn and chillies hang from every eave. The builders of each house appear to have used the wall of another home for their starting point, expanding outwards and upwards from there. The interlocking construction is designed to help the village withstand the region’s frequent earth tremors and confuse invaders. The result is a kind of architectural organism. Roofs become floors, doors become windows and the private becomes public.

Architecture aside, the real beauty of the place is its subterranean water supply. A spring of mountain snowmelt is channelled to each of the 98 homes for water, drainage and irrigation. It runs fast enough to stay potable and cool the houses in summer. It’s set up so enemies cannot cut off supplies in times of war.

The villagers started taking in visitors about seven years ago after the local tourism bureau was established. Businesses soon cropped up to cater to the outside interest but some of the new growth was believed to be undermining the community’s ancient assets. Xinhua newsagency reports that in the space of just a few months last year “some 70 business premises including hotels, restaurants and grocery stores have been moved out and six illegally built cement buildings demolished.” Only old-style houses can be built.

Some of the homes are open to guests. The cost of an overnight stay is about 50 renminbi and that includes two meals. Depending on the season, visitors can kill the time between meals by snacking on local grapes, figs and walnuts. In contrast to the usual approach, the walnuts are picked green and have to be peeled before eaten. When dinnertime does arrive, the food is likely to be a feast of sweet corn, cured meats, eggplant, radishes and tofu soup – with a little chilli and pepper sauce on the side.