The She ethnic group of Jingning

The She ethnic group is one of the minorities in China with a small population. The word "She" dates back to the very ancient times. It can be found in The Book of Songs, Book of Changes and other classic works. In today's show, we take you to Jingning in eastern China, the only autonomous county of the group in the country.

The name of the ethnic She (畲) group, means slash and burn cultivation. The She people live mainly of an agricultural production and hunting is a hobby.

In the southwest of Zhejiang Province in eastern China, Jingning is the country's only She ethnic autonomous county. It is also the only ethnic autonomous region in eastern China.

Located deep in the mountains with poor transport conditions, the She have long lived a hard life due to insular economic conditions.

Bu in recent years, the Zhejiang government and the entire community together have rallied support to boost the ethnic group’s economy.

Through several years of hard work, Jingning has completely changed its look and the local economy has seen fast development. Among 120 ethnic counties nationwide, Jingning’s economic strength ranks the 16th today, up 20 places from the 36th place in 2006.

This is a local folk song which expresses good times and merriment by the locals in a village called Shuang-hou-jiang (双后降).

Having benefited from related preferential policies launched by Zhejiang government, villagers in Shuang-hou-jiang have now engaged in various private businesses. They make use of the beautiful natural landscape and emphasize the development of folk tourism which has become a major and most profitable industry for the ethnic group.

Villager Lan Chenqi (兰陈其), or Mother Lan as she is called by her fellow villagers, is receiving a group of journalists and tourists at her home hotel called Mother Lan's.

Here Mother Lan is chatting with a visitor from Hangzhou, the provincial capital, as she pours tea for the guests.

"It's a busy day today. There have already two groups of visitors left. They came from the nearby cities of Lishui (丽水) and Wenzhou (温州). This is another busy day. We've always been busy. Since you ask, we make several tens of thousands of yuan a year."

It is clearly a great leap forward for these villagers who used to toil on their limited farmland and who worked hard to make only a few hundred yuan a year. Local people attribute the change to attention paid and fund invested by the provincial government to improve life of the ethnic group.

In the past several years, the Jingning County government has allocated funds worth some three million yuan, or about 380,000 US dollars for basic infrastructure construction. In addition to building new roads and sanitation facilities, the village has also built farm houses for cows and pigs to improve sanitation of each household. With a sound natural environment and improved facilities, the village has attracted more visitors.

An official from the county government, Lei Limu (雷里木), says the Zhejiang provincial government has been the backbone for economic development of the county.

"Take the construction of the new road as an example. The subsidy we received from the provincial government was 410 thousand yuan per kilometer. That's 80 thousand more than it gave to all other places."

In addition, a series of other major infrastructure construction projects have been completed with financial support from the provincial Zhejiang government. Total assets of the county in the last three years reached 3.4 billion yuan, or some 400 million US dollars. This figure is equal to the overall investment of the county in the past 21 years since the self autonomous county was established.

With this increase in investment, Jingning has paid great attention to the reproduction of its industries. In its newly established Lishui Economic and Development Zone which is 80 kilometers away from the county, a domestic industries garden has been set up and production is in full swing. It's expected that in 2012, the garden will add 120 million yuan in revenue for the county every year.