Sleepy town gets wake-up call
- Source: Global Times
- [00:58 November 18 2009]
- Comments
A Cicheng resident strolls down tranquil Taihu Lu among clusters of Ming and Qing Dynasty architecture in the east side of the town. This lake town of about 50,000 residents and 1,200 years of history is to be developed for mass tourism by an outside company from Hunan Province. Photo: Zhang Yuchen.
Cycling down narrow flagstone alleys of neatly tile-stacked Ming Dynasty walls, skipping rope with classmates in buildings hundreds of years old and getting lost chasing each other around endless courtyard compounds: her childhood memories are all like this.
Zhejiang University student Shao Lina hails from humble but picturesque Cicheng – the "town full of parental kindness and filial piety"in Jiangbei district, one of four districts under the jurisdiction of the booming deep sea port city of Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, East China. The 21-year-old junior majoring in tourism and hotel management was shocked to hear Cicheng's UNESCO award-winning architectural heritage has just been sold to commercial developers from thousands of kilometers away.
"I hope they're kidding! Otherwise, they've sold my only home,"Shao said. "I'm very unhappy!"
Shao and 50,000 residents are stunned that the Jiangbei district government has ditched its local partner – without warning, after eight years – to sign a 50-year draft contract with the commercially successful but controversial Fenghuang Tourism Company of Hunan Province in South China. .
A source inside the local Cicheng Development Company who requested anonymity told the Global Times that he and his colleagues still had jobs for the moment.
"The staff were shocked by this unexpected decision,"he said. "I had absolutely no idea about this."
