Cathy Mo
SHENZHEN-BASED OCT Enterprises Co., a Central Government-controlled company, announced Monday that it would start a project to save the quake-threatened culture of the Qiang people in Sichuan Province.
The OCT (Overseas Chinese Town) group will open a Qiang culture zone in the Sichuan area of its 1.2 to 1.3 billion-yuan Happy Valley park in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan, which is scheduled to be open to the public by the end of this year.
The Qiang nationality, with a history of 3,000 years, is one of the oldest in China. It has 300,000 members, 80 percent of whom resided in the quake-hit areas of Maoxian, Wenchuan, and Beichuan counties. All the houses in Luobo village, the most ancient Qiang village in Wenchuan, were destroyed. The same tragedy also befell hundreds of typical Qiang houses, buildings and bridges in Beichuan, Mao-xian, Lixian counties. More than 30,000 Qiang people died in the quake, 40 of whom were cultural experts, according to a June 26 Xinhua report.
“We have allocated an area of 470,000 square meters to build a Qiang culture zone, which will preserve the unique culture of the Qiang people in the form of watchtowers, houses, customs, songs and dances, cultural relics, everyday objects and photos,” said Feng Jun, marketing supervisor of OCT (Chengdu).
Founded in 1985, the OCT group is known for its successful development of theme parks in China’s tourism industry.
Since it opened its first park “Splendid China” in 1989, the group has developed a total of 10 theme parks nationwide, including Happy Valley parks in Shenzhen, Beijing, Chengdu and Shanghai. By the end of 2006, the group’s total revenue from its theme parks reached 8.9 billion yuan (US$1.31 billion), with a profit of 2.4 billion yuan.