[Officials
have told them to leave, and offered them modern homes, but the residents of
Zhong cave in remote southwestern China are determined to stay.]
Photographs And Text By Bryan
Dentonmay
 |
|
A resident herding his
cattle out to pasture past some of the cavern’s newer homes,
built with wood rather
than woven bamboo. Credit Bryan Denton
for The New York Times
|
GEBENG,
China — When armed bandits
prowled this remote, mountainous stretch of the southwestern province of
Guizhou in the chaotic years before the founding of modern China, the ethnic
Miao villagers hid in the region’s enormous caves.
And there they have remained, even after
China was united under Communist rule, grinding out an existence of profound
rural poverty and isolation.
The area is in one of the poorest provinces
in China. The only link to the rest of the country, and the outside world, is
over a mountain footpath — a brisk one-hour hike through a steep valley — that leads
to a nearby road.
Over the past 20 years, though, the caves
have become less secluded because of a steadily increasing trickle of tourists,
who come to experience what local media have described as the last continuously
inhabited cave in China.
A cottage industry has popped up in which the
cave dwellers earn extra money by renting out rooms in their homes, which over
time have clustered within Zhong cave, a limestone cavern big enough to hold
four American football fields. The hanger-like cave is so large that their
wooden or bamboo-made residences form a small, subterranean village built along
its undulating walls.
During the day, the cave is filled with the
sound of cows and roosters. On Friday afternoons, the laughter of children
echoes and the smell of cooking fires permeates the cave’s cool, damp air,
which offers relief from the heat of the valley below.
The county government wants the residents of
Zhong cave to move to a nearby block of housing: low-slung, white-walled
farmhouses with wooden window frames that were completed nearly 10 years ago.
Officials say that residents have not taken
care of the cave, leaving it unsuitable for inhabitation, and that the
government should oversee the village as it is listed as a protected community
by the Getu River Tourism Administration, a local agency. They have offered
each resident 60,000 renminbi, or approximately $9,500, to leave.
Only five families have agreed to move.
The remaining 18 families have held on
stubbornly to their homes inside the cave. They say that the new homes are too
small, that they fear losing access to their land, and that they alone, because
of their historical connection to the cave, should have the right to
independently control its small tourism economy.
“The residents of this cave should be the
administrators of tourism here, regardless of whether or not we are paid,” said
Wang Qiguo, the head of the local village, who established the first hostel
there.
As he spoke, his wife prepared a steaming
array of dishes made from home-smoked pork and local vegetables grown in the
valley.
After all, Mr. Wang noted, “The best thing
about this cave is its inhabitants.”
Even residents who are considering moving out
seem to agree that $9,500 per person is too little money, especially because
many are elderly and speak little or no Mandarin, meaning they could feel
isolated if they leave the cave community. They still rely on their nearby land
to grow the millet and vegetables on which they subsist.
Villagers have also complained about the
quality of the new housing, saying it’s too small and poorly made.
During the 1980s, the outsiders who most
often visited the Zhong cave were local government officials conducting checks
to enforce China’s “one-child” policy. The measure was deeply unpopular among
the villagers whose children work alongside their parents in the fields, and
tending to livestock.
Mr. Wang said that during those years,
violators of the policy would sometimes be taken away for forced abortions and
sterilization.
The single greatest change in the history of
the cave was the introduction of electricity, only in 2002.
Surprisingly, the Chinese government did not
bring electricity to the area. Instead, a wealthy American businessman from
Minnesota, Frank Beddor Jr., was responsible.
Mr. Beddor first visited the Zhong cave in
2002, and would ultimately return several more times — donating tens of
thousands of dollars to connect the cave to the region’s electrical grid.
His continuing financial support also built a
schoolhouse and a communal bathroom, and delivered livestock and other
assistance to the villagers — dramatically improving their quality of life.
But in 2011, the school was closed by the
local government, forcing residents to send their children, as young as five,
to the region’s boarding school nearly two hours away.
Mr. Beddor died at age 83 in 2007. His
emotional connection to the village is still a mystery to the villagers, some
of whom remember the few times he visited the cave.
Wang Qicai, 39, a farmer who also runs a
small general store out of his home in the cave, said young people may move out
to become migrant workers, but many end up returning to have their families.
The cave, he said, “feels like home.”
“The weather inside the cave is amazing,” he
added. “It feels like heaven.”
