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While unexpected cold weather has turned Mount Longji, a popular terraced landscape in the norther section of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region known as "the back of the dragon," into a world of snowy splendor, it has also provided a new source of income for the mainly farming residents to become part-time tour guides.
The beautiful scenery has attracted visitors from various parts of the world such as Andrew Lockwood from New Zealand.
"Terraced fields, white snow and huts spread in the mountains have formed a picture of sheer beauty," said Lockwood, who added it was all sunshine now at the pas-tures in his home country.
Pan Lianfeng, a 34-year-old woman farmer from Huangluo Village, 103 kilo-meters away from the scenic city of Guilin, works as a part-time tour guide during the slack farming season.
"The scenery at Mount Longji changes with the seasons. You can see the moon from the water in the terraced fields at the sowing period in spring, green crops in summer, golden rice in autumn, and the 'white dragon' in a rare cold winter," she said as she admired the scenery.
"Amidst thin fog, layers of terraced fields, covered with white snow, extend afar just like the scales of a dragon," said Pan, of the ethnic Yao group.
The mountain got its name among local residents because the Longji mountain range looks like the back of a dragon, China's legendary icon. But it seldom snows on Mount Longji in the winter.
The terraced fields, built by local farmers of different ethnic groups from the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) to Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), spread 500 meters from the foot of Mount Longji to the moun-tain top. The spectacular landscape has made it a popular scenic site.
Pan said the unexpected snow this year has helped at-tract more tourists to Longji.
The tourism business has made Pan's family pro-sperous and she has bought a new motorcycle, so the family members no longer have to climb the mountains on foot.
Huangluo, Pan's village, falls under the jurisdiction of the Multiethnic Autono-mous County of Longsheng, home to 160,000 people of ethnic groups including the Zhuang, Dong, Yao and Miao.
Tourism has become a new way for more local residents to make extra money. Residents of the Zhuang ethnic group at Ping'an Village live on one half of Mount Longji and operate over 70 family hotels.
More than 4,000 farmers in Longsheng County are engaged in tourism and at the same time continuing their farming.
A local official said 150,000 tourists visited Mount Longji last year.
(Xinhua News Agency January 7, 2003)
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