With great reluctance, Han Xingde, a middle-aged man from the Salar
ethnic group of Qinghai Province, presented the sheepskin raft,
handed down in his family for generations, to a nearby museum
recently, after he won the gold medal in a recent sheepskin raft
race on the Yellow River.
"After driving it on the Yellow River for more than 20 years,
sheepskin raft now becomes such a rarity that the cultural bureau
treasures it in the museum," Han said.
The 44-year-old began to sail the raft to transport timber when he
was 12. Sheepskin rafts were the only means of transportation for
the older generation of Salar residents in Xunhua county of the
northwest China province. All the men of the Salar ethnic group
were capable of sailing rafts.
For centuries, they rode on sheepskin rafts to escort logs drifting
downstream and transport daily necessities. "It was an
indispensable conveyance we could not live without at that time,"
Han said.
But, sheepskin rafts are being used less and less in people's daily
life after 16 highway bridges built on the upper reaches of the
Yellow River over the past few years.
The mileage of highway in Qinghai, a landlocked province on the
northeastern part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, has increased from
462 kilometers in the early 1950s to 18,268 kilometers in 1999. The
Salar people now travel by bus and some have even bought their own
cars.
"The disappearance of sheepskin raft indicates a shift in the way
of living for the Salar people," said Han Shanghwen, deputy
magistrate of Xunhua county.
Local residents have built woolen mills for producing cashmere and
sweaters, which sell well throughout China. By taking advantage of
the abundance of sunshine and difference in temperature between day
and night on the highland, an increasing number of people began to
grow out-of-season vegetables and fruits and sell them to other
parts of China for higher profits.
The new line of operation helps increase the per capita net income
of residents in Xunhua to 1,000 yuan annually. This is considerable
progress for this remote and underdeveloped county, though it is
still much less than many other parts of the country.
To
narrow the gap in income between eastern and western China, the
central government has launched a long-term strategy to accelerate
economic growth in the western region. One of its chief purpose is
to raise the living standard of all ethnic groups in the region,
said Bai Ma, an official in Qinghai.
With easy access to transportation, sheepskin rafts have turned
from a means of transportation to a sports item to lure tourists.
Descendants of raft drivers are doing jobs in other trades.
"However, sheepskin raft is an important way to understand the
history of the Salar ethnic group. The courage, skill and
confidence displayed by the Salar people in driving rafts will
carry on," said Su Ming, a research fellow in Qinghai.
(Xinhua 09/29/2000)