Love from afar: It feels like home in Guizhou

GUIYANG, China, March 8, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- A news report by Huanqiu.com:

In the Vlog of American influencer Katherine's Journey to the East, a picturesque scene shows that among the continuous mountains and mists sits an ancient and plain village with clear stream wandering through.

"The scenes here are unbelievable." "It looks like a paradise. Just imagine going on an adventure here!" The comments of this Vlog are full of surprises and praises left by people from different countries. This "dreamy land" that attracted so many people is China's Libo County, a place of world natural heritages located in Qiannan Prefecture of Guizhou.

In recent years, the videos posted by influencers like Katherine have opened a window for more and more foreigners to see the true charms of China. Quite a lot of foreigners even came to Libo and other places of Guizhou to experience the "poetic lifestyle faraway" and some of them even feel like "home" here.

Bernardino Regazzoni, former Swiss Ambassador to China said "both Switzerland and Guizhou have beautiful views and rich natural resources. We have a lot of experiences in transforming natural resources into future advantages, especially in utilizing mountain resources for green development." As Regazzoni said, Guizhou is not only similar to Switzerland in natural conditions, but also complementary to it in the areas including new energy, energy-saving and environmental protection and clean technology. The opportunities for cooperation are plenty.

With the further opening-up of Guizhou, more and more foreign students come to China to study. The Yemen student of Guizhou University, AL-Akhali Adham, has stayed in Guizhou for 4 years. Before coming here, he knew very little of Guizhou and the remarks about Guizhou on the Internet were mostly linked with "mountainous region" and "isolation".

However, he was deeply impressed by the multi-faced and vivid image of the place after coming here himself. He was amazed at the colorful ethnic culture. Different ethnic groups gather in front of fire, singing and dancing for their beautiful life. What also surprised him was the rapid development of Guizhou. Bridges were built spanning the mountains and waters to smooth the way to rural rejuvenation.

AL-Akhali Adham said that in the mountainous Guizhou, people need pool their wisdom to co-exist with nature. "The clever locals in Guizhou built their homes and developed terrace agriculture based on local conditions. More importantly, they also built up many bridges which is very essential to the development of rural areas." Just as AL-Akhali Adham said, there was nearly half of the world's 100 highest bridges in Guizhou.

In the recent decade, benefiting from the great changes in transportation including the construction of feeder airports and expressways in Guizhou and the platforms such as Eco Forum Global Guiyang, Big Data Expo and China (Guizhou) International Alcoholic Beverages Expo, Guizhou's tourism has seen rapid development with amount of tourists and days of stay constantly soaring. More and more foreigners like AL-Akhali Adham started to learn about Guizhou and came here in person to experience its real and diversified styles.

As one of China's inland open economy demonstration zones, Guizhou deeply integrated itself into the big picture of the "Belt and Road" initiative to constantly promote the building of new system for open economy at a higher level. According to the statistics published by Guiyang Customs, Guizhou's foreign trade reached a record-high scale with export volume exceeding RMB 80 billion in 2022, marking the high-quality and leapfrog development.

When asked what he wanted to say to Guizhou, AL-Akhali Adham said with affection, "I believe coming to Guizhou is my best life choice. Seeing Guizhou is seeing China. In the future, I'd like to stay in this beautiful place to appreciate the different sides of Guizhou."