You are here:

Letter from China: How a river's fury is turned into fortune

0 Comment(s)

E-mail Xinhua, March 31, 2025

Adjust font size:

by Xinhua writer Gui Tao

KUNMING, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The first thing that strikes me about the Nujiang River is its voice. Not the churn of its rapids or the mist swirling above the waters, but the river's deep, primal roar that echoes off the jagged cliffs in southwest China's mountainous border province of Yunnan.

Gazing at the relentless flow of the river whose name could be literally translated as "the angry one," I feel an unexpected serenity. This paradoxical calm has probably come from knowing its story through my interviews -- how a force of nature that once impoverished generations now fuels their prosperity.

For centuries, the Nujiang River's 2,000-km rush through China, from the vast Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, carved not only deep, rugged canyons into the land, but also entrenched destitution.

In the Lisu Autonomous Prefecture of Nujiang, where 98 percent of the land consists of near-vertical slopes and knife-edge valleys, flat farmland was a rarity. Farmers clung to sheer hillsides, tying themselves to trees only to harvest meager plots of corn.

To the villagers I met on my journey upstream, the river was "a capricious neighbor." Its eroding fury swallowed fields whole, while landslides and mudflows often buried what little remained.

Isolated communities relied on shuddering zip lines to cross the torrent. A single frayed rope would mean disaster. Traders inched along cliffside trails no wider than a man's shoulders, their mule caravans laden with essentials such as salt and medicines. The first motorway bridge over the river didn't arrive until as late as the 1950s.

At a local coffee factory, I met Wang Ze. Her voice hardened recalling the old days for her parents and those living along the river: "The best harvest meant nothing if you couldn't get it across the river."

Back then, poverty made meat a once-a-week luxury in Wang's family. Like many, she saw the mother river as both a giver of life and a thief of opportunity.

Yunnan was central to China's uphill fight against poverty, with Nujiang being one of its toughest fronts. The numbers laid bare the struggle: geographic isolation once trapped the prefecture in an incidence of poverty as high as 56 percent -- among the nation's worst.

Then came the change. Over a decade ago, China's targeted poverty alleviation strategy reached the mountains, bringing unprecedented investment and infrastructure. By 2020, Yunnan had shaken off the shackles of poverty, lifting 8.8 million people out of extreme poverty.

Engineers have tamed the Nujiang River with a web of bridges. Roads now cling to cliffs where only goats once trod. Drones buzz across the gorges, delivering mail and supplies. E-commerce has plugged remote villages into national markets, while relocated communities have gained schools, clinics and clean water.

The river's wrath has become a gift. The misty valleys now nurture a treasure trove of flora. Terraced coffee and tea plantations thrive where corn once struggled.

Wang Ze's family no longer grows corn. With support from national and local subsidies and training programs, farmers like her father have transitioned from subsistence crops to high-value plants like coffee beans.

Wang oversees quality control at the coffee factory which ships local premium arabica to Shanghai cafes. The 26-year-old told me that Nujiang's dry-hot valley climate, affected by foehn winds in the lee of the towering mountains, keeps pests away, making it an ideal place to produce quality coffee beans.

Lushui, a county-level city nestled between the Nujiang canyon and snow-capped mountains, where Wang's factory is located, now cultivates 30,000 mu (some 2,000 hectares or around the size of 2,800 football fields) of coffee plantations -- nearly 10 percent of its total agricultural economy.

Lushui's Deputy Mayor Hu Xiaojie now eyes markets in Singapore and Europe, citing the canyon's unique microclimate as their competitive edge.

In the neighboring Fugong County, the once-obscure "caoguo," a ginger-like spice, has become a vital cash crop.

Zhao Yufa, whose father pioneered its cultivation 20 years ago, now works at a processing factory producing caoguo beverages and essential oils. Before 2009, his family transported harvests by horse or even on foot. Now, government-built roads allow truck transport, and Zhao's family earns around 200,000 yuan annually from the plant.

The 36-year-old told me that the Nujiang canyon's altitude, soil and humidity are perfect for caoguo, the olive-shaped dried fruit that he called "the golden beans" of his hometown.

The prefecture is now China's top caoguo producer. As of 2024, this subtropical area has seen the annual production of the valuable spice reach 72,000 tonnes. The thriving industry now generates an additional 4,000 yuan in annual income for each of the 165,000 local farmers involved.

Zhang Xiaoxiang, director of the information office of the prefectural government, said that "where the river once took, it now gives."

Today, the Nujiang River's fury draws adventurers. The local government has certified whitewater rafting routes, training villagers as guides and hosts. Homestays and eco-lodges now dot the valley, their terraces overlooking daredevils riding the waves -- a spectacle fueling a thriving tourism economy.

The once-essential zipline crossings have now been reinvented as thrilling tourist experiences. Along the scenic overlooks of the Nujiang River, vendors hawk smooth, water-worn stones gathered from the river's edge to the tourists.

Hua Lin, a local vendor, returned to the prefecture after years of working in the neighboring province of Sichuan as a craftsman. He now sells the very stones that local poets once described as the river's "roaring anger." But today, Hua told me, they bring fortune.

Despite years of infrastructure improvements, Nujiang remains one of China's most remote and hard-to-reach regions.

"They want these in Beijing, Shanghai...both thousands of km away from here," Hua said, extending a stone toward me, his thumb tracing the shipping chart on his mobile phone screen. "Will the shipping costs leave me anything to earn?"

I told him the truth: I'd need to calculate carefully.

Maybe with more logistics chains reaching Nujiang in the future, these mountain treasures could cross farther than the river's bend.

The river still roars, but its people no longer tremble. Enditem