Bara villagers celebrate the Tibetan New Year on the summit of Darakelzom mountain, which is regarded as sacred by the local people. (provided to China Daily)

For the past two months, people living in the Gangchu River valley near Nyishar, a township in Yunnan province, have become accustomed to seeing the tall, portly figure of Sonam Dingdzog.

Sonam strides across the fields as he directs operations to clear rocks brought crashing down from the mountains by two earthquakes in August.

Oct 20 was another day of strenuous activity for Sonam, general manager and 45 percent stakeholder in the company operating Darakelzom National Park in Nyishar’s Bara village in the Diqing Tibetan autonomous prefecture.

He rushed 300 km in four hours to oversee clearance and repair work on the highway connecting the park and the county seat of Shangri-La.

The 40-km highway has a particular significance for Sonam, because he was the driving force behind its construction. It took five years to build and cost about 200 million yuan ($33 million), some of which came from his own pocket.

When it opened five years ago, the Bara native finally achieved his goal of building an asphalt road to his village and opening the area to visitors.

To see the road threatened by tremors was like a knife being thrust into his heart.

In the past two months, people living in the Gangchu River valley near Nyishar township in Yunnan province have become accustomed to seeing the tall, portly figure of Sonam Dingdzog striding across the fields as he directs operations to clear the rocks brought crashing down from the mountains by two earthquakes in August.

October 20 was another day of strenuous activity for Sonam, general manager and 45 percent stakeholder of the company that operates Darakelzom National Park in Nyishar’s Bara village. He rushed 300 kilometers in four hours to oversee clearance and repair work on the highway that connects the park and the county seat.

The 40-km-long highway has a particular significance for Sonam because he was the driving force behind its construction. It took five years of strenuous effort to build and cost approximately 200 million yuan ($33 million), some of which came from Sonam’s own pocket.

When it finally opened to traffic five years ago, the Bara native finally achieved his goal of building an asphalt road to his village, a notoriously remote and poverty-stricken place, and open the area to visitors. To see the road threatened by tremors was like a knife in his heart.

Career opportunities

In the decade since Zhongdian county was renamed Shangri-La (after James Hilton’s classic adventure novel Lost Horizon), thousands of Tibetans have tried to make their fortunes from the tourist boom.

In Diqing alone, 25 travel agencies employ 2,480 guides, according to the prefecture’s tourism bureau. The area has at least 300 privately operated hotels, employing more than 10,000 local people, which provide accommodation for visitors from home and abroad.

Sonam is probably the most successful entrepreneur in the regional tourist industry, having amassed personal wealth of more than 200 million yuan.

Although his face was sunburned from long days spent traveling back and forth across the valley, his puffy, bloodshot eyes indicated that he had gone without sleep for several days.

“The damage will be long-lasting and, given the danger posed by falling rocks, we can’t open the valley to visitors yet. Violent tremors still occur occasionally. Last night the ground shook like a baby’s cradle,” said Sonam.

Showing the resilience to adversity that enabled him to open the park in the face of considerable hostility, Sonam stressed that nothing will dent his confidence that he can restore the highway and continue to promote the beautiful scenery around his hometown.

Historic opportunity

Sonam’s company lost 270 million yuan when the local infrastructure, including a large section of the highway, telecommunications and power facilities, was damaged by the quakes.

The park, located in the Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas, covers 170 square km and is noted for its deep, broad valley. It’s also situated at a relatively low altitude compared with Shangri-La, a two-hour drive to the south.

Before the highway opened, the only means of access was a 50-cm-wide mountain path carved by the locals in 1979. Parents often had to tie their children to them, like roped mountain climbers, to ensure their safety on the hazardous trek.

In 1977, the 13-year-old Sonam left Bara for what was then Zhongdian, intending to sell some rubies he’d acquired in the village. “I can clearly remember walking barefoot for four days to Zhongdian. The people were scared when I told them where I came from,” he recalled.

At that time, the parents of errant girls threatened to marry them off to men from Bara village if they failed to mend their ways, according to Sonam. “So you can see that the village had a really bad reputation,” he said.

However, no one in Zhongdian was willing to buy the gemstones, so Sonam hitched a ride to Kunming, the provincial capital, where he met with yet more disappointment. Dispirited, he spent his last 40 yuan on a train ticket to Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province and a frontier city for China’s reform and opening-up policy in the 1980s.

In Guangzhou, jewelry experts told Sonam that the gems were fake, so he returned to Zhongdian and, having run out of money, was forced to ask relatives for help. Unexpectedly, fate smiled on him when the owner of a coal mine in Zhongdian paid him 10,000 yuan for the gems.

“That was his first pot of gold. At that time, 10,000 yuan not only guaranteed a high social standing, but could buy many things, far more than you might expect,” said Bara villager Kelsang Dondrup.

In the 10 years that followed, Sonam sold books, compact discs and clothing. His hard work paid off and he amassed more than 500,000 yuan, which he used to start other businesses, such as hostels and grocery stores. However, his ride to the top wasn’t always smooth and at one point he lost all his property when he was conned by his business partners.

When Zhongdian was renamed Shangri-La in 2001, Sonam was inspired to formulate a plan to develop tourism in his home area. “I knew it was a historic opportunity for anyone interested in tourism, and, more importantly, I could help to provide the villagers with a better life,” he said.

Initially, the county government refused to approve Sonam’s plan, so he waited outside the office building for three days to personally outline his project to the county head.

“It was extremely hard for an individual operator to work in the travel industry at that time, especially at the outset,” said one industry insider, who declined to give his name. “There were no favorable policies or government support. Basically, the investors had to do everything themselves.”

The highway was a top priority for Sonam, but some of the villagers whose homes were on the proposed route refused to move, said Kelsang. Sonam held meetings with them every day. The atmosphere was often fractious and some of the village women even spat in his face.

“It was disgusting, but I had to listen to them and compromise. Otherwise, my dream wouldn’t have come true,” said Sonam. “However, fortitude is a quality shared by all the residents of the plateau and I refused to give up.”