A year and a half after the investigation of the New York Times, tourists continue to flock to the town of Xian in the Xiapu region of southeast China. The American newspaper had revealed that local farmers and fishermen were paid to pose with tourists and that scenes were created from scratch so that visitors could take photos to share on social media.
And again in December 2022, comments poured in on Weibo: “Surrounded by mountains and water, Xiapu is beautiful and poetic.” to written on December 15, a user of Weibo, a Chinese social network, attaching a series of nine images to her message, reports Well-informed person.
Located on the edge of the East China Sea, this wild region is mainly populated by farmers and fishermen. The tourist comes, then, to admire a solitary fisherman rowing his boat with his fishing nets towards the infinite horizon or the farmers and their buffaloes in the middle of a bucolic mist. Problem, this is all false and tourists don’t know it before they arrive.
Tourism multiplied by 10
Xiapu was best known for its seafood, but years of poor harvests at sea have hit the local economy. Nostalgic for a traditional rural and endangered way of life, the village recreates scenes to attract visitors.
And it works since tourism has multiplied by 10 between 2008 and 2019, specifies the New York Times. He even thought of everything, as he installed at each site display boards with sample photos to take that visitors can imitate. Most of the villagers are actors, paying $15 for each photo shoot, and local trainees even get help from walkie-talkie guides to pose.
To recreate the scenes, all means are good. For a poetic shot of buffalo in a misty forest, the smoke is recreated thanks to a burning pile of straw a few feet away. As for the buffaloes, they have not been used for agriculture for years.
Dissatisfied visitors
But tourists do not hesitate to express their discontent when they discover the situation there. “First of all, the so-called rural people in the photos on social media are all actors, and the place itself is a bit like a stage for a photo shoot. Actually, without the filters, the place is extremely ordinary. The beach is dirty and seafood restaurants are known to rip people off,” a tourist wrote on Weibo. “I don’t know what is true or false anymore,” wrote another.
However, “fake” and the pandemic have not deterred tourists from coming. The rural tourism boom has been fueled by influencers, including Li Ziqi, one of the country’s top influencers. Other places like this are created from scratch like Colonial Williamsburg in the United States.
Source: BFM TV
