The turtle, the yellow dragon and the flies

Aerial view of Yongtai. Its turtle-shaped ramparts are clearly visible. In the distance, part of the windmill forest stretches for dozens of kilometers. At bottom right, the Temple of the Water Dragon is located near the small lake.

A detailed old map of Yongtai, showing the elements of Feng Shui and the religious and military locations of the time.

Home of Master Li, the former schoolteacher turned historian of Yongtai. From now on, he’ll be in charge of receiving the many official delegations involved in the town’s historical heritage. The huge effigy of Mao is not anecdotal. Almost every resident has an altar dedicated to him, as he is considered powerful enough to influence the gods.

Raised for their wool, Cashemire goats account for half of Yongtai’s livestock.

Mr Cai is a happy shepherd, and one of the few to be doing rather well. His secret: « I’ve trained my goats so that I don’t have to look after them. That way I can do something else instead. I’ll just look after them from time to time on my motorcycle. In the evening, they come home by themselves! »

Fortunately, despite the drought, the level of the spring has not dropped, and it continues to supply perfectly clear water to the inhabitants.

Sheep and pork are the main sources of meat. Every resident raises at least one. « If I leave Yongtai to live in a new house, I won’t be able to raise my own animals. How will I be able to eat meat? «

These 2 old women live alone. Their children have left for the city. « Here my children didn’t earn any money, so they had to leave. But they take good care of me, they bought me my cane for example! »

Every day, many itinerant traders come to try to sell their wares, but most of the time without much success. Here, a honey seller.

The village has no street lighting, although a vast video surveillance system (not yet active) has been installed by the government in anticipation of the tourist influx.

Yongtaï est situé juste au pied des montagnes Yongtai lies at the foot of the Qilian Mountains. These mountains have always been a major source of fresh water. Now, with the drought, all that’s left are dry riverbeds that no longer fill up. You can also see ancient terraced cultivations that have been abandoned for lack of water.

The grass in the meadows is no longer sufficient to feed the sheep. This shepherdess has harvested the weeds in the nearby potato field to supplement them.

The fields are planned as terraces with a complex irrigation system. Every year, they need to be maintained, because even though the slope is not very steep, the winter wind is a major contributor to erosion.

Like many other shepherds, Mr. Wen had gone to work on construction sites. But he says, « It’s easier to work than to get paid. The bosses exploit us and don’t pay us. I was even more miserable than here, so I preferred to go home ».

Mr Wang is one of the die-hards who don’t want to leave Yongtai. « They can’t force me to leave the home of my ancestors ».

Quelques agriculteurs possèdent de petites Some farmers own small harvesting machines, but others, like these farmers, have only the strength of their arms and animals. Most of the young farmers have left Yongtai, leaving only the elders.

If you go a little deeper into the Qilian mountains, in a wooded area just 15 km from Yongtai, you can see what the landscape used to be like! In order to preserve the environment, shepherds are now forbidden to take their flocks there. That day, it rained for the first time in months.

Panneau de propagande installé par le gouvernement indiquant que ce dernier travaille au recencement des familles les plus pauvres pour leur proposer des solutions.

Government propaganda sign indicating that the government is working to identify the poorest families and offer them solutions.

The school was recently closed and converted into a museum. Its closure was a decisive factor in families leaving the village, as there is no school transport service. Few families own a car.

En prévisions de l’arrivée des touristes, des In anticipation of the arrival of tourists, workers have been constructing a pedestrian platform around Yongtai. Unknowingly, because they have not been trained or informed, they have destroyed part of the Turtle’s tail, thereby threatening the benefits of Feng Shui according to local beliefs.

These houses are sold by the government for Rmb10,000 or Rmb100,000, depending on household income. Yet, according to experts, they cost no more than Rmb50,000 to build. Substantial profits are therefore expected.

To facilitate field irrigation, the local government supplied tanker trucks. Problem: those delivered soon proved unusable. « the local government people don’t care about us, they pocketed the money for the trucks and gave us ones too old to use ».

This church, built for the film « Days of Glory », was left in place without being demolished, like the many other fake historical buildings that still dot Yongtai. 5 years later, it’s threatening to collapse. According to the district mayor, « if the film producers pay, they can do whatever they want ».

Two major enemies face Yongtai, a small turtle town of Gansu province. On one side the Yellow Dragon, this powerful wind coming from the north reinforced by the phenomenon of climate change bringing drought, and on the other side the Flies, these small officials and their collusion with the private interests of the film industry and who want to empty the village of its inhabitants.

Over-exploitation of land, climate change, petty corruption, private interests, this allegorical report seeks to reflect the social and economic precariousness of isolated populations in northern China.

Like a mysterious message deposited by an intelligence from another time and place, the Turtle City lies in the middle of a land now scorched by drought. Built over 400 years ago, Yongtai stood up to the terrible Mongol invasions of the time. But will it be able to resist the 2 enemies that threaten it today? On the one hand, the Yellow Dragon, the name given to the wind that brings drought to this region threatened by desertification, and on the other, the corruption of petty officials and local elected representatives, nicknamed The Flies in reference to the anti-corruption campaign launched by Xi Jinping in 2012, who would like to turn it into a tourist park stripped of its inhabitants.

The turtle

In 1608, under the Ming dynasty, it was decided to build a garrison as part of the defensive plan for the Great Wall of China, both to protect the Han population from the Mongol armies and to secure the Silk Road. As is often the case in China, urban construction wasn’t done at random, and if it had to be practical, it also had to meet the criteria of Feng Shui, an age-old Chinese discipline that consists of arranging dwellings according to energy flows intended to promote the well-being and prosperity of their inhabitants.
Yongtai, whose name literally means “Eternal Prosperity”, took the shape of a Turtle, a Chinese totem animal symbolizing longevity and wisdom. Oriented on a north-south axis at the foot of the Qilian mountain range, its ramparts reach 12 metres in height and 1700 metres in circumference. Given the city’s defensive function, 4 jar-shaped gates were built at each cardinal point to trap enemy armies. At the time, the wall contained 12 batteries, all of which have now disappeared.

No trace remains of the head, destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, but it was located near a small lake to the south, fed by an underground river. Called the “Sea” or “Taiji Pool”, this lake is of prime importance as, according to Feng Shui, turtles cannot live far from water. Following the course of the underground river that runs through Yongtai, five wells have been dug, representing the five vital organs – heart, lungs, liver, pancreas and kidneys. And as a turtle always has a tail, 5 mounds outside the ramparts symbolize it. Inside the city, 2 main axes, South-North and East-West, divide the animal’s body into 4 unequal parts, themselves subdivided into perpendicular streets with a labyrinthine effect to lose the enemy in case of invasion. Here again, pragmatism and symbolism meet, and the design of the alleys is also supposed to represent that of the shell.
Has the Turtle fulfilled its role of wisdom by bringing peace to the region, and kept its promise of longevity and eternal prosperity? It would seem that, over the centuries and right up to the 1980s, this was the case. From its origins as a garrison town, Yongtai gradually evolved into a civilized city where herders, farmers and merchants flourished. But if up until the 80s, Yongtai counted 1,500 inhabitants, today it barely reaches 400. Gutted houses, deserted courtyards, wind-beaten alleys, dead trees – today Yongtai seems to be in agony. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

The Yellow Dragon – Drought, the primary cause of depopulation

It’s not yet desert here, and yet it’s very much like it. Dust, sand and stones seem to eat up light and color. What has become of the forests that once stretched down from the mountains to the plain and surrounded Yongtai? Where are the trees in the alleyways, under which it was nice to enjoy a little coolness in summer?

We’re on a plateau at 2100 meters altitude at the foot of the Qilian Mountains, and the sandy desert of Tenggeli is less than 100 km away. The climate here is harsh. Very hot in summer and freezing cold in winter, Yongtai is constantly swept by powerful winds. The authorities have made no mistake about it, and since China decided to join the concert of nations working to combat global warming, forests of wind turbines have replaced the conifers of yesteryear, and hectares of solar panel fields are now the vanguard crops (As a reminder, in 2015, Gansu installed as many solar panels in 4 months as France has).

The vicious circle of deforestation

Deforestation began 50 years ago. With poverty on the rise, people had no choice but to cut down trees for winter heating. However, around the same time, China launched a vast reforestation campaign to combat the advancing desert, which was already making itself felt at the time. And this battle against the “yellow dragon” is far from over. Today, due to climate change and the over-exploitation of land and groundwater, China is losing 260,000 hectares of arable land a year – the size of Luxembourg! That’s why it’s pushing ahead with reforestation, and the aim of the “3 Nords Windbreak” project is to create a new green wall 4,500 km long and in some places 1,450 km wide. While in some regions the project is achieving good results, this is not the case for Yongtai, where the land is inexorably drying out.

Thousands of trees have been planted, but none have survived, and the vicious circle seems to have set in. On land that was already naturally arid, and with the exponential increase in the population prior to the one-child policy (which ended in 2015), the soil has been overworked by water-hungry agriculture and industry, as well as by the 6-fold increase in livestock. They have simply dried out the soil, leaving it without roots or surface water to hold it, not to mention increased salinization, preventing trees from regrowing.

And without grass and trees, there’s less rain.

For the past 10 years, the Yongtai region has been experiencing chronic drought. Since the beginning of the year, for example, it has only rained 2 times. And yet, almost every day the sky is filled with clouds, but they refuse to keep their promises. This leaves the solution of artificial rain, which local authorities are counting on. China is in the process of developing a highly ambitious project called Tianhé (River of Heaven), which aims to seed clouds passing over the neighboring Tibetan plateau with particles of silver iodide, thereby significantly increasing rainfall in the region. For the time being, however, the project is still in the experimental phase, and Yongtai’s farmers and stockbreeders are having to wait patiently for rain.

This year’s wheat and potato harvests are once again meagre – just enough to live on. Yet the farmers are proud to show off their fields, where they refuse to use fertilizers or pesticides to increase yields. In any case, it wouldn’t be enough to generate a significant surplus to sell the grain. The only fertilizers they allow themselves are for crops dedicated to feeding pigs. And then the weeds that grow between the rows of crops allow them to provide a small food surplus for the sheep, who can’t find enough to eat.

Environmental conservation has a negative impact on pastoral activities.

The Qilian Mountains, which border this region of Gansu and straddle the neighbouring province of Qinhai, were declared a Protected National Park in 1988. But the ecological rules that were supposed to limit the impact of human activity on the environment have never been applied – on the contrary, polluting industries such as the exploitation of sand, coal and steel resources, hydroelectric dams and tourism have seriously damaged the environment. It wasn’t until last year, following a visit by inspectors from the now-powerful Ministry of the Environment, which resulted in a damning report, that repressive and punitive measures against industrialists and certain unscrupulous government officials were put in place. The impact on Yongtai was immediate: shepherds were no longer allowed to graze their flocks, and the tourist center a few kilometers away, which brought in some economic activity, was closed.

Yet some Yongtai shepherds continue to take their flocks to graze on the Qilian Mountains because they have no choice, even if it means paying heavy fines. Some shepherds even spend several days at a time in the mountains, out of sight of the game wardens, as the adjacent Yongtai meadows are no longer sufficient to feed their livestock. However, even if livestock numbers have fallen considerably, overgrazing of this kind, while solving immediate problems, only weakens pastoral activity in the long term. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

There are only 14 shepherds left in Yongtai.

There are still 14 sheepfolds in Yongtai, divided into 2 types of breeding. One for sheep, bred mainly for their meat (Gansu has a large Muslim population) and the other for goats, whose down provides the famous cashmere (China and Mongolia supply 3/4 of the world’s cashmere wool).

Sheep numbers vary greatly from one shepherd to another, and while some farms have as many as 400 head, others have just a few dozen. A sheep can be bought and sold for 1000 RMB (around 130 Euros), and most of the time shepherds have had to borrow money to build up a significant herd. Caught in the maze of repayments, some have given up, sold their flocks to the big industrial sheep-farms and gone off to join the ranks of factory workers or construction site labourers. Low-skilled, often forced to move far from home, leaving their families behind, these people are often the victims of contractors who do not hesitate to exploit them by underpaying them or not paying them at all. Far from improving their living conditions, these converted shepherds rarely reach the Eldorado promised by “Chinese-style socialism”.

But others fare better and manage to diversify their sources of income. This is the case for those whose families also own a few plots of land, enabling them to grow cereals, melons or watermelons.

Photographic tourism also provides them with a small additional income, at least until last year, when the Qilian Mountains Nature Park was closed to the public. Yongtai is in fact quite popular with photographers in search of “authentic” pictures. Some shepherds, for example, are paid around 100 RMB (around 13 euros) to bring their herds in through the main south gate at the best light, and to make several round trips to satisfy the photographers. Some women sell handicrafts – mainly embroidery – and other farms offer accommodation. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

The tourism sector in the crosshairs of the authorities

The village is losing its population

Faced with these climatic difficulties, Yongtai’s inhabitants left in droves for neighboring towns and villages, leaving just 100 households. In rural China, counting by household rather than by population is common practice. This dates back to the days of the one-child policy, when many of these, because they were the 2nd or 3rd “unwanted” child, went undeclared. For more than one child, parents had to pay a heavy fine. If they didn’t have the money, their furniture was confiscated and they had to attend “citizenship classes”. As a result, many Yongtai women went into hiding to give birth and avoid these “punishments”. It also appears that many women were sterilized under the pretext of health problems.

While the policy of restricting births has had a beneficial effect in terms of exponential population growth, it nevertheless finds itself today with a problematic demographic deficit. That’s why, since 2015, China no longer applies this policy and even encourages people to have children. But in Yongtai, the damage has been done. Between the exodus and birth control there are no more children, so the school was closed 5 years ago. Of course, there are other schools in the vicinity that can accommodate the young pupils, but according to the inhabitants of Yongtai, these are not of good quality. And without organized school transport – in fact, no transport at all, as there are fewer than 10 cars for the whole village – the children can’t get to these schools. As a result, most of the young parents have left for the nearby town of Jingtai.

Yongtai, Protected National Historic Site.

It has to be said that the local government sometimes strongly encourages residents to leave. Their aim is to exploit Yongtai’s resources. While farming and pastoral activities are no longer viable, the authorities are counting heavily on tourism.

The Tortue village has been a protected national site since 2012 (National Cultural Relic Protection), mainly thanks to the excellent general condition of its ramparts. The site is regularly maintained, and new construction is now prohibited. Well, it all depends on for whom and for what…

While local residents no longer have the right to build, others have the privilege of distorting the site without the authorities looking over their shoulders. In the words of the mayor of the district to which Yongtai belongs, “those who pay can do what they like. We need to exploit Yongtaï and what it has to offer”. This is particularly true of film producers, who are fond of authentic natural settings. As a result, the village has been the setting for a number of period films, for which no one on the spot was able to give us the titles or names of the directors. We did, however, manage to track down a film called “Jour de gloire” (Day of Glory), about a community struggling against a rogue prince. One of the film’s protagonists was a Christian father who ended up sacrificed on a crucifix next to his church. For the purposes of this film, a church was built and left in place at the end of the shoot, along with a number of other constructions, such as a fake palace and houses.

A fake church in the middle of a historic village

The problem is that these theatrical scenery buildings, made from plywood, are in no way built to last, so 5 years after the film was shot, they’re all not only in a state of disrepair, they’ve also become dangerous. Yet the local government doesn’t see any need to at least secure their access – the church and other false buildings can be entered quite freely, even though the floors and staircases threaten to collapse at any moment.

It’s understandable that Yongtai would make a perfect natural backdrop for period films, and that the local government’s economic strategy is to capitalize on this resource in the same way as another filming site a few dozen kilometers away. But the latter, unlike Yongtai, is a site created ex nihilo in the same way as Hollywood studios. So isn’t there a fundamental contradiction between a protected historic site – and rightly so – and unlimited permission to disfigure the village for “those who can afford to pay”?

The authorities want people to leave Yongtai.

This contradiction doesn’t seem to offend the numerous delegations who regularly come to the village to spread propaganda and encourage the inhabitants to leave. For the poorest among them, they offer new homes in other nearby villages. These are offered at the modest price of 10,000 RMB (around 7,000 euros), while the more affluent are sold 100,000 RMB (around 70,000 euros). But there are problems with the income evaluation process, and many people actually don’t have enough money to buy these new homes unless they go into serious debt.

This doesn’t seem to bother the Mayor, who maintains that these campaigns to encourage people to leave the village are for the good of the residents. When asked how they will earn their living from now on, the answer is simple: they will work as farm hands or on building sites, and won’t have to worry about the drought. But the people of Yongtai don’t see it that way.

First of all, most of them would be leaving their ancestral home. Given the importance attached by the Chinese to the cult of the elders, it’s easy to understand that asking a son to leave the house that has seen generations succeed one another is a real problem of conscience. A shepherd, for example, often also has some land to cultivate, and has a pigsty and other stables where he can raise animals for his own consumption. Tourism also enables him to earn a little money by renting out a room from time to time. The village’s 3 grocery stores are also restaurants, have fields and livestock, and the women make handicrafts. The same goes for the teachers, now retired, and the doctor, also known as the “barefoot doctor” because he is one of those people trained to detect and treat the most common illnesses in the remote countryside. All these people know that if they leave, they will also lose their freedom, as the accommodation on offer is totally inadequate for such diversification.

For the moment, these incentive campaigns have only borne fruit for the poorest of the poor who have nothing to lose, and the closure of the school has already resulted in the departure of the youngest. But those who are still here today are under ever-increasing pressure. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

The pressure is mounting.

The authorities are still refusing to install running water in the village. Yet its installation would be decisive for the development of tourism in the village, particularly in the hotel business, which today can only accommodate people who are used to the precarious conditions associated with the absence of water. But according to the Mayor, running water will be installed once everyone has left. “They don’t mind going to the well, they’re used to it. And they mustn’t take too many showers, as water is scarce here.

On the other hand, to facilitate film shoots, all electricity has been buried and a network of concrete bollards throughout the village has been set up to support the heavy equipment. In anticipation of the influx of tourists, surveillance cameras have been installed throughout the village. For the time being, they are not in operation. Work has also begun on the outside of Yongaï, including the construction of a footpath that is supposed to go all the way around the village. Of course, this is intended for future tourists, although it is to be hoped that it will one day be lined with trees – which is more than uncertain, given the aridity of the area – as the almost 2 km walk is likely to be rough under the blazing sun or battered by the icy winter winds. What’s more, according to the workers themselves, this track work will serve no purpose. “It’s a waste of money; it would be better to pave the streets, there would be less dust here”.

Residents are not benefiting from government investment.

Despite the Party’s propaganda campaigns insisting that it cares about the well-being of residents, the latter are not fooled. “The Mayor was elected thanks to the packs of cigarettes he distributed to everyone. He also promised us water trucks to help us irrigate our fields, but the ones he supplied immediately broke down, unusable. On the other hand, when people from the government come here, they always arrive in big new 4×4 cars. Thousands of RMB are spent and we don’t see any of it. They don’t care about us, they just want us to leave so they can make money from tourism and films, that’s all.

Yongtai is caught in a vice

The fate of the inhabitants of Yongtai today seems very precarious. Caught between a drought that has become endemic and economic development projects that exclude them, what will become of them? Will the Turtle City, symbol par excellence of longevity and wisdom in Chinese culture, be able to resist the folly of mankind?

China has taken the issue of climate change head-on, and is working hard to limit the damage. Despite having played a large part in sawing off the branch on which they were sitting by over-exploiting their land, the individual inhabitants of Yongtai are the direct victims of climate change. In the short term, they are unlikely to be able to survive in an environment that has become downright hostile to serene development. Add to this the Flies, for whom the race for money and petty deals with the tourist and film industries are the driving force, and the inhabitants have many enemies. But the end of the story is not yet written. Let’s hope the Turtle keeps its promise of longevity, and only falls asleep for a while, only to awaken again to spread its wisdom!