Hello, welcome to Roundtable where we serve up piping hot debates on the issues that sit in China and beyond.
I'm Neoh Weian and Roundtable says hi not in the studio, not from the studio, but in a very beautiful province.
Roundtable says hi in Guizhou province, hello everyone!
Hello! Hello everyone, you look beautiful today, all of you, I am joined by Yuxian and Fei Fei, all wearing magnificent headpieces.
What about me, I'm not beautiful.
Good old headset, monitoring the processing of the show, making sure the sound quality is good, taking one for the team.
But all of the rest of us, we are loud and happy and our headset says hi.
Hello. Fancy you wearing very expensive headsets and noisy and bracketty.
And we are wearing local traditional costume.
We're wearing myo costume.
I like yours by the way.
Oh, thank you! Yours look kind of low -key but in a very, I would say, fancy fabric, a little bit of shiny fabric kind of way.
Aren't we all sort of the same?
Fei Fei's clothes are green and Yushan, very classy, yes, Yushan's blue shiny blue and I'm red.
I don't know. I'm all filled by reflective, I don't know, this little silver, yellow shaped trinkets that I look like a shiny, I don't know, a doll or something?
Or a shiny butterfly.
Oh, thank you. Butterfly is the thing of Guizhou.
I'll explain later.
And this is actually a very important series we're doing here in Guizhou.
We are taking you again out of Beijing, out of the studio to different places in China.
We visit different provinces and this is our first stop.
The first stop is Guizhou.
And in our special series China Horizons in the future, we plan to take you to more places to tell the uncovered untold stories, to find the big dreams in the smaller towns, to figure out what are some interesting stories, some fascinating skills and crafts we would be able to share with you our lovely listeners.
This is something we've been intending to do for many years because we somehow have been something similar to what people call armchair critics.
We often are cooped up in the studio, we browse the news.
We study them, we do research, we try to come up with the somewhat in -depth understanding of the stories happening across the country in China and around the world, in fact.
But we don't feel like… Sometimes things can run dry when we fail to come up with very fresh examples or stories that could somehow prop up our arguments on the show, and this is something that's making us really happy to be able to do this this year.
yeah see the real deal tell the real stories talk to the people on the ground and that is super fun and for me it's even more interesting because this is my first time here in Guizhou province I've been to you know places but Guizhou is the first time but I know it's the first time for Yushan as well so what is your first impression?
I mean the first time I came here at first I didn't notice anything that's obviously different but once you travel on the road you'll start to notice that there's no bicycle track on the road there's only the lanes for cars to drive by and also there's I see scooters running around but there's no bicycle because obviously there's like hilly road all over Guizhou province and no one is ever going to ride a bike up there do you know Guizhou is the only province in China that It has no plains, no flat lands.
Only hills. Only province.
I had no idea. And maybe that's the reason that Guizhou is very famous for its bridge building.
I think most of the videos that got very popular online especially overseas, see showcasing you know the super projects from China, that line, bridges, along the mountains, most of them I believe are from Guizhou.
If I'm not wrong, I think Huizhou has the largest number of really high bridges, like from the bottom of the bridge to the surface of the bridge.
It's really up high.
It's a very mountainous part of the country, if not throughout the world.
Because here in China, in geography terms, we call it the area of Hengduan -Xianmei or Hengduan Mountains.
The reason why it was named so was because, well, in late Qing Dynasty, I think it was around the 19th century, not in the early 20th century, so one scientist studied the area, the terrain and the geology and geography and all, and came up with the conclusion that this is perhaps the Hongduan Mountain areas.
And the reason why he said that was because there are so many ups and downs, sometimes the mountains can go as high as 4 ,000 meters and then the valleys can go down as as low like 1000 meters below the ground below the ground in fact so and there are also the tallest mountains like going up more than 7 ,000 meters so the ups and downs and the gap is so huge and this is in fact also severing the communication with the rest of the country which is why he thought of this idea of heng duà, meaning severing so that was it was so bad the ups and downs was so huge that it was very difficult it was inaccessible
to move around it was an inaccessible area of the country and it was very difficult to communicate with the rest and therefore the region got its name if I can pick a keyword from Laj Min's long speech the key word would be was It was a place that is really hard to go to, it was a place that people do not talk to each other living in the province Because the situation has changed definitely when we visit here To start with we flew here very smoothly and then we travel on high -speed rails.
We travel on Highways, it's very smooth Still, you know the roads are with a lot of curves a little bit hard for me as someone who?
enjoys Who enjoys car sickness all the time, yet still quite smooth, I have to say.
So I picked was as the keyword. What are some other keywords that you think would fit into Guizhou Promise?
Because it's not your first time, Fei Fei.
No, but my first time coming to Guizhou was more than 10 years ago.
Notice any difference?
The biggest word for me is change.
Because when I came here for the first time, it was more than 10 years ago, and Guizhou isn't as a popular travelling destination as it is today.
So when we travel around the province, we go to the city of Guiyang, and also, we went to this place as well, it's very quiet.
10 years ago. 10 years ago.
You don't see a lot of travellers especially comparing to its neighbour, the province of Yunnan, which is always famous for its tourism.
And then, if you travel around, you don't see a lot of tourists and also you don't see a lot of like businesses relying on tourism as well.
So sometimes, well, you can see at that time it was enjoyable from an outsider point of view because you get to see the original, authentic indigenous people's lifestyle.
But I would argue for the locals themselves that may not be that of a good story simply because at that time Guangzhou also didn't have as many bridges and also high speed rails as it has today so also when i you know walked around the city of Guiyang yesterday and i just see the massive crowds in the old city center and young people are going to bars also do you know coffee is also one of the landmarks of the city people young people yeah the locals recommend a lot of coffee shops to me and recommend must try some of them at least so you can see that the lifestyle is changing and also the province
is turning into something new and something really modern but also still has its own features as you know we Joe has a lot of ethnicities groups and also has his own very unique cultures and I think also with my trip this time I see a lot of the more higher tech part of Guizhou which I can share later but it's definitely a big shock to me it's about the change that promise been through.
We will totally return to the high -tech part but I want to tag on a little bit since I talked to someone living here in this village we're going to talk a little bit about where we are currently a bit later after sharing this, I talked to him and he said that because of the pandemic period of time, people lost almost three years of traveling freely and traveling as much as they want.
So the willingness of going to different places enjoying local culture, local tourism, local landscape is higher than ever, which is why last year, the year 2024, the number tourists received at the total tourism expenditure increased by 10 .4 percent and 13 .3 percent respectively and the number of inbound oversight tourists received increased by 81 percent.
A lot of people come to Guizhou and come to different go to different places and this is one of the most popular destinations.
We are in the Xijiang -Miao village groups.
Yeah, this coincides with my observation compared to my earlier visits to this province.
My experience with Guizhou dates back as early as 2019 and already back then, I was impressed by the infrastructure that I was able to experience.
Unlike many people who might be a little older who might think that Guizhou, because of its geography, could be a very remote and isolated area of the country.
My experience of renting a car and driving around on the superhighway was very pleasant because all the highways were almost all new and the facilities, the service areas, and even the bathrooms were very clean.
So that was my impression.
and then my second time when I came here to Xi Jiangqui Miao village this is somehow the biggest Miao village or Miao congregation in Asia if not in the entire world and so it's very popular but my second time was in 2020 It was during the Covid pandemic and so tourism was hit and so this time five years later my second visit to the village and my impression is busier and that is compared too many years ago I see a lot more people this is like the the second day after the National Day holiday we're recording this two days after a national holiday and you would expect that people may have enjoyed
their holiday they may have come over this is a workday and people are not supposed to be hanging around but as from the noise that you guys are able to hear.
We are recording on the tourist of a restaurant and you can see people walking by us near a road that's less scarcely five meters away and they're stopping to watch us, they're shouting and cheering so it's more crowded to the place.
To a point that I was asking the staffers earlier on with a little worry with the surge in tourism numbers are they able to handle and they He said no problem we can handle 50 ,000 people on a daily basis.
Yes and guess how many people are there here today?
Around 10 ,000 people are visiting here this Zhijiang Qianhu Miao Village or Zhijiang 1000 Households Miao Village.
It's too busy that we'll have to do the show, around 10 o 'clock in the evening because it's too busy during the day.
And also because we want to show you guys the beautiful background behind us The tiny little dots the dots of lights you see behind us are one household after another 1 ,000 one apparently according to the name more than 1 ,000.
In fact, it's around 1500 households and population more than 6 ,000 and we are well this village belongs to the Tien Dong Nan Miao and Dong autonomous prefecture and in this prefecture there are around 3 .7 million people living in the prefecture and out of which more than 2 million are Miao people so Miao people is the majority here Han people are the minority good for a change fun for a change besides that since we're here do you guys know a little bit about this for instance village or this now the The village is almost turning into a professional scenic spot with a lot of different activities,
a lot of different experience that you can enjoy.
The experience include something that fascinates me the most, that is intangible cultural heritage.
So have you ever tried any?
Well, the headpiece is the first time.
It's huge. And also, I think the meow style basically is very popular internationally.
A lot of the fashion brands all come to some meow gathering places and looking for their inspirations when they're looking for new design for the new season.
And so it's like a treasure house for designer ideas, but just give us some notice or give us some credit.
Are there any more specific samples of meow Intangible Heritage products gaining global attention?
Batik? Batik? Yeah, batik is a technique to dye the fabric.
The way you do it is you use bee wax you warm it up until it's liquid and you use something like a knife to draw on a piece of cloth and so bee wax will merge into the cloth and then you somehow put the cloth into a tank of indigo and when you when it's dying, when you lift it up, when it's dried, then the patterns can be removed by warming, heating the fabric, so the wax will go away, and so the part that was previously covered by wax will be left blank and you can draw patterns with B wax.
In fact, it's getting more fashionable, I can see people wearing that kind of patterns and cloth fabric designed with such technique outside of the region, in Beijing in fact.
Hmm, I've tried a little bit of intangible cultural heritage skills.
Well, like Fei -Fei said… Silver smithing.
Yes, silver smithing.
It's something quite cool.
Laming has pointed out multiple times that the heritage we're wearing is very tangible, yet the intangible part is about the skills.
This is about the actual techniques used to craft these silverware and Miao silverware, Miao silver ornaments are very important.
It is a very important part of the Miao cultural, intangible cultural heritage.
I tried a little bit.
I tried to hammer the silver.
I was told I would be able to hammer a silver stick into thinner silver stick.
OK. And I tried it for five minutes and I was like, it's not changing.
How long does it take to do that?
And they're seeing two or three hours.
So we don't have to be the final product.
No, then I move on to the next technique.
The next one is quite interesting.
It's in Craving. You use a little shizzle and you use a tiny hammer to hammer on the shizzle and it will leave marks on the silverware or silver plate or silver stick or whatever you have. I can see how some of the patterns on your headdress is done with engraving.
Engraving is cool, because you get to engrave any patterns or characters or flowers or anything as you wish.
And it's not that hard, per se.
If you're interested you can check out the video I made.
I made out a Chinese character with that skill a very bad looking one but still you can recognize it if you know chinese characters it was really fun and I asked my teacher master in that silver shop i asked him how long does it take for someone to learn the technique that can make their own silverware guess how long.
Five years? I'm guessing five.
One day, if you want to go if you tell them what you want to make as long as it's not this you get you actually by saying this I mean my huge and beautiful and noisy...
exquisite and loud and valuable headdress...
headdress if you're not trying to make something like that if you were looking for something simpler and customized it takes around half a day or one day to finish with the help of course of the master that's how easy it is and that is why they are including this experience, this interactive activity into the entire traveling experience.
You go to a shop, you spend some time, you get your very own customized personal ornament or souvenir and you take it away.
And you guys are not wrong.
If you want to be a professional craftsman of silverware, it takes three years to know all the 50 different techniques.
50. I have experienced 2 or 3 today.
Didn't master any, but there are 50.
And if you want to be someone who can teach people in these locations, it takes around 5 to 10 years.
And if you want to be called an intangible cultural inheritor, an inheritor with the skills that are valuable and recognized and should be protected, it's hard to count the years because it has to be talent plus hard -working plus dedication and a real passionate heart for the technique so that's silverware.
Springsmithing really was an important part of the meow lifestyle because the meow people they were living in the mountains, they were always on the moon looking for greener pasture and so they prefer to transform their assets into more portable forms. So and they also are a little bit showy people.
They would like to brag about their wealth if they could.
So one ways they like to brag about their wealth is doing in fact invest into silverware, a whole set of silverware for the daughters of the family and the women of the family, so that when they walk around sounding all tingly and noisy, people know, Oh, this is a family that's doing well, that's comfortable, that's really making their ends meet and enjoying their life, and they're very successful.
Just to clear the air, they do not wear like this and walk around the streets every day.
In case you are wondering, it is ceremonial.
The very fancy, very shiny and loud ones with the headsets, it's ceremonial, and even for men, Lai Ming is wearing a traditional miao costume as well and he has silver buttons, if you're wearing the whole set there should be also a necklace, a choker kind of necklace or any kind of necklace.
Like the one you're wearing across my chest. So even for men, it's still something quite extravagant for ceremonies for sure.
I'd love to see Lai Ming try that one to showcase.
Sorry, not a showy kind.
But apparently, Miao people are quite showy.
Making this enormous, cut pieces.
They enjoyed the results of their hard working.
I see no problem in that.
Yeah. And they're really, really proud about their products, their intangible cultural heritage, and the fact that they inherited it from the previous generation and from thousands of years ago.
So, speaking of the inheritors themselves, me and my colleagues Ian, we actually met one yesterday at a local museum and he makes the kind of clay whistle that's really made into different shapes of animals, little birds, little like dogs, and then they color it before baking it to make it solid, and when we approached that inheritor, the first thing he asked us, Where do you want me to start introducing it?
Do you want to come with me to the mountains to collect the clay?
Shall we start from the beginning?
Like that's how they're serious about these skills that they're inheriting So yeah, they're really proud and they're eager to share it with whoever that's got an interest. I really love that That is the ancient part of the story When you come here and you enjoy those and you learn a little bit get your hand dirty a little bit But there are some really fascinating modern parts as well they are using different techniques to tell their stories for instance not only here in the village but also online using different technologies to tell the stories and also they are inviting people to show them there
are different types of immersive performances There was one right down in the valley that we are overlooking The key sound, we just heard. Yes.
That is also making the experience very immersive.
And besides that, I believe here in the village, the live museum model also empower local communities, not only culturally, but also economically.
When it comes to different types of museums, we think about the public ones, we think about the private ones, but here they call it the family museum.
Sure. It's the items they collect from generations to generations.
Some of them are quite old.
Some of them are not that valuable, but definitely with a family story, it's kind of like a family endowment and they have different themes and they bring those museums into this village, which is now almost a professional scenic spot.
Yeah, there are a few family museums scattered across the village.
I've had a fortune of visiting a few of them, and one of them, it was a very small family museum, they showcased the belongings of the ancestors.
Talk about hunting rifles and rankles made out of straw and old weaving machines that Only the granny of the family knows how to operate and embroidering utensils and stuff and cooking utensils.
So it really is a record of how they used to live their lives when they were sort of relying on agriculture and hunting to make their ends meet.
Now things have changed.
Also they used to have very expensive headsets as well.
and this old grandpa proudly showed me the headdress that was passed on from their ancestors and generously invited me to put them on and it was a very fond memory.
And I think if there's enough time for me to go there again, I will definitely try and see to check up on them and see how things are going for them.
Are these families ordinary people, not like the big wealthy family?
You can see from the legacy that they are ordinary people.
They're not super rich. They are not wealthy, but they are proud of their heritage and they're taking pains to preserve them Even if it means just only in their own family.
I think some of the details with this sort of older generations in their daily life even especially among the ordinary people, you know people who don't really have their names engraved in the history books or any of the stones out there.
I think you can sort of relive their life when looking at this sort of souvenirs or things passed on generations from generations.
From my point of view, it's more interesting to look at what the emperors are wearing or the emperor's teapot.
I would love to see what an ordinary teapot 100 years ago or 1000 years ago.
I think that sort of relates more to me instead of, you know, that's the royal family's heritage.
Yes, because it was more commonly used.
It represents that period of time.
And we're only talking about these items, these quite tangible ones, because we get to experience them a little, and yet we have experienced a little bit of the quite intangible ones.
That will be the festivals, the performances, the singing and dancing.
things. One thing I always think about is how talented and artsy people who are not Han ethnic group.
No offense to Han people.
I'm a Han person. I love Han people but I think Han people or maybe just me am not that good at singing and dancing.
We are not. We are the cheerleaders in this country, you know.
That's what they say online.
You know, by singing and dancing and the Haim people are cheerleading in the background.
Yes, that's the thing.
And in 2006, festivals and art forms such as the Miao Sister's Festival, the Boye Eight Town Seated Singing, the Dong Tours, and the Shuei Ethnic Duan Festival were inscribed on the first batch of China's national intangible cultural heritage list. It's something quite impressive and very valuable to local people.
Well, we came across that topic while we were having the conversation with local people.
We talked about a festival that they only share every 13 years.
It's a really long period of time.
That was because people believe that the male people, the male ethnic group people, they have been traveling, were moving, or even migrating quite a lot in history, and they find it hard to find a place to settle down, to start alive.
And even in places like Guizhou, you see it's very mountainous.
It was very hard to reach. And once they settle in a small village, it's even hard for them to find another village, to visit another village.
It's just that complicated, tragically speaking.
That is why for them they believe every 13 years, or once a zodiac circle has passed they need to find a chance to report back to the ancestors Telling the ancestors where we are now.
Are we thriving or are we struggling a little bit for this, you know short period of time 13 years and That's the way they communicate with their ancestors.
For instance for Han people We would visit the tombs of our ancestors every year because it's always there But for male people, it's harder than that.
And they created a festival for that.
And I find it very beautiful.
And previously, the festival was quite serious and a little bit enclosed because they want to be very respectful.
They want to report the news to the ancestors in the most serious way possible.
But later with the development of technology, with male people here in Guizhou talking more more to people outside with internet.
You report to your family every day if not every hour if you want.
They find it maybe we can invite more people to our celebration every 13 -year festival, so they started to invite Miao people from all around the world to come here to Guizhou and to celebrate the festival with them.
And we talked a lot about traveling here to Guizhou, meeting local Miao people stealing a little bit, just a little bit, skill from their super smith.
What are some other keywords you think of Guizhou, well when you think of Guizhou because there is definitely one that I've been heard about a lot even before coming here and it has nothing to do with the beautiful and diversified culture.
Take a guess, data center.
Sure, you mean these power monsters that are supporting for instance iCloud or Huawei cloud or what have you.
Because my clouds would tell me where they are and they say they are the clouds in Guizhou or they are over the clouds of Guizhou and I am always curious and I'm super jealous of Fei Fei and Yuxian, because you've visited one of the data centers.
Exactly it's on the outskirts of the city of Guiyang.
actually. The provincial capital.
Yes the provincial capital and they have like this massive new district established for the purpose of gathering a lot of the data centers around the country and we are fortunate to visit one of them.
What it's like? Because when it comes to data centers one of the big concerns about the security.
You know, people's data on probably a lot of your mobile out of stores in this data centers so they want to keep it secure not leaked so they're very careful when it comes to visitors.
We were able to visit like one of the buildings within those massive data center.
I think they have like three or four buildings only for storage of data and they're still building another four right now.
And we're only allowed into one of them and we are only allowed to see the outside of the machines.
Did you meddle with my data?
I don't have a chance, frankly.
They are very sort of sealed inside a very large box, so that only professionals, only people staff working on these machines are allowed inside and also they want to keep the machines healthy.
I was quoting here because the temperature needs to be within the right range and also the humidity of the air also within the same range.
They're also keeping away for example dusts.
And also power surges.
Not everyone is allowed inside.
So did you see shelves or servers?
According to the experts there, there were over 3 ,200.
They call that smart cabinet that's stored individually in different rooms and it's all sort of locked up but I see like staff walking around checking the temperature in each room.
They say that each room in order to keep the smart cabinet just in good shape and operable, it needs to be contained at precisely 25 degrees Celsius.
No higher, no lower.
Like human beings. There's a huge taller -than -me size of fire extinguisher outside of each and room, just in case any accidents happen.
So, that data center, they really pay attention to securing the data that's being processed, collected, and stored in their smart cabinets.
And based on how they told us, it's like they're dealing with clients, customers from all around China.
There's companies doing their very valuable data and warehouses doing their own records here with them as well so it's like a big I was joking with the safe area it's like a big kindergarten yeah where each of these companies they send their kids to the kindergarten yeah yeah they give them a smart watch to keep you in good shape oh you're in good temperature right and yeah the babies exactly so it's like a big kindergarten for data story and also they have like cameras so that their our clients can check on their precious data 24 -7.
Now I can imagine the clouds on top of Great Joe.
They're very high tech looking in very precisely controlled temperature rooms and they're being taken care, or they're in the shape of babies.
Now I have updated my imagination over these data centers.
Speaking of data centers, because in this day and age, we all have numerous, uncountable amount of data on the cloud in our personal gadgets.
And people often talk about how power consuming or energy consuming these places can be.
Are they trying in any ways?
Because I can imagine how hard it is to operate on a greener mold.
So are they trying?
Well, that's precisely the reason why Guizhou can be the place for data centers.
Because, geographically speaking, I think we can tell from the past couple of days that Guizhou is not very hot.
Even within this time of year, it's approaching summer.
Beijing is approaching 40 degrees this week, I think.
35 -something. And Guizhou is still very cool and it's like this all year round, which makes it perfect to store your data here so that you don't need to spend a lot of energy cooling down the temperatures around those machines.
To keep the temperature within reasonable range.
Yes, because when it comes to the storage and also those data cabinets, they can't be stored in a very hot place, and they can't also be stored in a very cold place.
So they need to be kept within a certain range all year round.
And Guizhou is precisely a very perfect place for that.
And many of these data centers, they're also using renewable energy and clean energy to run their data center.
And the area that we talked about, the place we visited in the city of Guiyang this morning is called Guiyang New Area, or Guiyang New Region.
And that place is particularly designed for more of the green energy to be used in order to secure the say the development of the local green database, that's what they call, and also I heard that the one we visited this morning is just one of the 10 that's operable as of the end of 2024 and there are overall 20 of such databases right there in the on new area in the city of Guizhou so that's something that the local government and also entire country as well that's been trying to work on, on say a national basis.
I've got this question about the data centers.
I'm not really sure if you're allowed to answer them since you are the privileged people who can visit data centers that are very sensitive and secured and they make sure no private data is revealed, super jealous, but my question here is, what are they doing with the data they have?
Do they only store them?
They gotta transfer them back to the owner, I assume.
What are some other things they can do or they are doing, if you can share that with me?
Well, I think first of all, visiting data center's definitely not as exciting as trying silver smith.
That's for sure. Feeling a little bit better.
And the second is that the data center also sort of upgrading their technology as we know.
AI, artificial intelligence is definitely getting attractions at the moment and everybody in every sector in every industry, in every country is trying to leverage this new AI technology.
So they are, so traditionally they're only storing, transferring and also processing those routers a little bit.
For example, there one of the engineers give me a very vivid example is that the photo that you store on your phone that sometimes are showing is on the cloud.
It's not downloaded on your phone and we are trying to open that photo.
You need to tap it and take some time to open that photo.
That means that photo is stored in one of those data centers and when you tap on that photo, the data was transforming back to your phone and that's the reason that it needs to take a few seconds sometimes even minutes if the internet is not that perfect.
So storage and transmission, the basic service that they're providing.
I'm getting more forgiving about not being able to show my friends the precious pictures of my kid as soon as I want, now I understand the logic behind it, but I have to ask.
Is that, or have you spent more money on the phone with the bigger storage unit?
I do that too, but you still have to download it anyway, if it's on the cloud, on the beautiful clouds over the city of Guiyang.
But I'm curious, because if they're only doing storaging and transmitting, compared to the possibility of them also processing and even computing with artificial intelligence, would the energy consumption be the same for these two different situations?
Of course not. Imagine a computer you use at your home, and that's one case, and when it comes to storing the data, probably that would need like thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of that home computers.
When it comes to AI, that means we need to multiply hundreds of times of the hundreds of thousands of computing capabilities, and that means more energy.
Where is that energy from?
They are taking two paths at the moment.
One is that they are trying to use their energy efficiently.
For example when it comes to their air conditioning system For example, one of the designs is to cut down the amount of air conditioning it requires to cool down those machines.
First of all, they need to concentrate on all the hot air generated from these machines in one place And then transform them through sort of a tube to another place to cool them down.
So instead, when you instead of trying to cooling down those air 10 times, they're sort of cooling it only one time.
So they're sort of cutting down the knees for air conditioning.
So better techniques to make it more efficient to save energy.
And also the air conditioners, they use are very different from the ones we use at home.
hmm. Yes. They're using sort of a more higher end of technique.
They're said to be able to cut down the energy used by about 30 per cent per air conditioner.
That's a lot. Yeah, that's a lot.
If you're considering they're having like tens of thousands of those air conditioning, only in that data center, and that's one path.
And another path is that with the power grid itself the electricity they use.
That will come to, these data centers they don't generate power themselves.
They're relying on power plants and those power plants are sort of operated within the province.
So the province of Huizhou they are like over 50 % of the power is from a renewable source.
Hydro power solar or wind.
and so you can see that the whole grid is greener every year and that means the power they use at data centres are getting greener as well and also means those green electricity is not sort of a privilege for data centres everyone in this province in the city of Guiyang is using greener electricity.
Greener electricity like Fei Fei shared means the energy is from solar power or from wind from hydro as well.
And as I understand it can also be from a certain source that we don't usually think of, which you also have the privilege to visit to the other day.
Oh, you mean a waste!
Yes. A waste plant.
Yeah. That can be a privilege if you count that one.
Also that plant is sort of transforming waste into power.
I think that plant was able to power 200 ,000 homes per day from the waste they collect from like four districts and also three counties under The city of Guiyang alone, you can imagine that the amount of waste we generate living in cities they're massive and I don't want really get into the technical terms when it comes to how to transform the waste into power but the gist is that they are sort of filtering the water out of the waste first and then burn them and then they take a few technical steps to sort of de -pollutant.
Try and remove the polluting elements from the garbage.
Within those burnt waste and then within from the the burning and the steam coming from the burning they sort of power the power generators and that's where where the electricity comes from.
And also when we visited that plant, they're also cooperating with factories, for example, Gili or a beverage factory, Wahaha, on providing heating sources to those factories.
That is another source of sort of feeding back into the industrial chains within this city.
It's a more nuanced way of utilizing resources because one thing that we fail to mention when we introduce Guizhou province is that it's not a very populous part of the country and it's certainly not a very rich province in resources in its most common sense.
I mean, we can see the view, obviously, is very spectacular and breathtaking and and the air is clean, the water is fresh, but there are many other resources to power industries to begin with, and also given the scarce population, you can't expect huge industries to emerge and really grow strong in the region, but it's interesting to see how the region is leveraging other resources.
exactly as you know let me just mention the Guizhou is very mountainous and from a traditional industrial point of view this definitely occurs because you don't get to build roads more easily yes as flatlands, yes but I think in today's term it's also a blessing you know with the mountains you can generate the amount of hydro power that can be generated is unimaginable so So I think, well, depending on how you look at it, Guizhou can also be a very resourceful place when we are looking at from a different lens instead of just industrial development lens.
On top of trying to make very nuanced and very carefully planned way of using the resources that they already have, another way that they're seeking development is to push for cultural tourism, and that's circling back to something we began earlier.
and that sort of also coincides with our observation of what's really going on in the province from an average tourist perspective.
That's quite right.
With the change of the society development stage, with the change of people's perspective, the same old thing starts to feel different for people.
We talked about local people before doing the show, and they say, agriculture activity, agriculture laboring, is definitely still one thing they value quite so much. Previously it was their way to bring bread or bring rice or bring the delicious fish we've just tried this evening onto the table but now with almost all the households at least here in the Xijiang thousand household village, Miao village they are engaged in tourism in starting a Airbnb, a very beautiful one, and starting a local restaurant with the local delicacies that we have been enjoying for two days, making me thinking about making
this business trip longer because they're just so delicious, trying to figure out different ways to make their very own products as souvenirs that you can take away home.
They're doing all these things and they're still doing a little bit agriculture.
About 80 % of the population in the village, they are engaged in some kind of tourist related activity.
Could be restaurants, could be cooking, could be taking photos, could be doing any kind of service.
But still, the staff have proudly claimed that agriculture is still pretty much a part of their life and it's part of their tradition.
They would like to keep it life and as compared to before like Nhu Hoi Ling said earlier, they are trying to make ends meet by growing mostly rice, now they are doing it for fun, and they are growing a lot more fresh fruits, including for instance, plums, peaches, oranges, blueberries and strawberries.
And I can sense the very proud tone when they say, we don't sell those, we grow them by our own hands.
We have to enjoy them ourselves.
So it's definitely a lifestyle, And you get to see still their passion and their love for the land that have been helping them supporting the family generations after generations only now, it's a way to take the pressure out of the busy day to get connected with nature a little bit and to get some organic food that can be quite expensive for the family.
So things change. Yeah, exactly.
We also visited a park, actually a wetland park in the new city center of Guiyang this afternoon.
And they also mentioned to me that I think the urban dwellers themselves, they are also changing their ways of life because before we used to call, you know, cities as concrete jungles.
Of course, but right now I think, at least in the city of Guiyang, it's very green.
And especially in the new city centers, they only start to build that city center around 24 years ago.
So around the centerpiece of that district is iWetland Park.
They have like three lakes, sort of interlinked with each other.
And they also have a lot of trees inside, and it's very popular, not only among local people but also among travelers.
I talked to a couple of them, you know in a working day Afternoon the park is still very crowded, right?
It's not very quiet Park in the sense that there are people dragging in the park around the lake I talked to an anti she's visiting her son in working in that district and She's just took a stroll around the lake and the marring You know the nature and the staff also told me they are also designing the lake to sort of be an education platform for children.
So that children, especially living in cities, they can be very distant from the trees.
The bugs, the water around them.
And going to the park, they are not only allowed to run on the grass, touch the trees, catch the bugs.
They're also allowed into a part of the lake, safe part of the lake, to see what's in the water, the small crabs, the small fish, what kind of grass grow under the water.
Yeah, so touch the water and that's more sort of concrete, more making sense to them instead of showing them a video or a photo, you see?
That's a beautiful lake.
That doesn't translate into anything in their minds instead of just letting them touching those lake water.
It's quite important, I've come across this research saying that if kids are connected with nature in these ways, if they can touch the soil, if they can touch the water, the percentage of healthy germs on their skins would increase significantly to make their entire health system much more resilient.
It's not only important mentally, it's even important physically, and I get to see that because the rate of good or excellent water quality at the exit sections of major river remained 100 % here in Guizhou.
They've done their work and they've seen the results.
And it's also reflected on people's way of living, on people's level of happiness.
I think people are quite joyful here in Guizhou.
I'm not really sure if it's because the most, the majority of people I've met are tourists from around the world and enjoying their vacations here in Guizhou.
But definitely everyone is enjoying the life their different ways.
We are wearing like this and doing the show and without even being blushed a little bit because we are not the only ones.
We've seen people walking on the streets wearing like this taking beautiful, beautiful pictures because there are multiple shops here providing these services and people get to enjoy it.
And we're not talking about those young ladies with perfect skin and perfect figure.
We're talking about people when they're eight years old, little kids are doing the same thing.
We see ladies in their late 60s or 70s are wearing traditional meow costumes and taking pictures and it's amazing.
They're enjoying their lives, they're traveling to these places with perfect air and great temperature.
And that is the kind the scene I really enjoy observing when I'm traveling with Round Table with all of you.
Yeah. I can see how the locals are beginning to really take pride in their environment in their heritage.
Perhaps there may have been a stage of time when the locals might complain about not having access to better opportunities.
What good use can we make of this beautiful environment?
Can we make use of our heritage?
If we are still trying very hard to make our ends meet, to bring bread to the table, now that with development presenting better opportunities and better ways of life to them, better qualities of life, in fact, to them, they can really begin to take pride in the way that they've managed to keep the environment clean and also in the way they've managed to pass their heritage to the future generations.
And honestly, we need them to have that pride, because one thing that we failed to mention earlier is that Guangzhou is on the upper stream of many rivers across the country, if not outside of the country as well.
So we need not only efforts, but also sense of responsibilities and pride to help the locals as well as the rest of the country to work on the same goal of keeping the environment clean for the rest of the world and for perhaps our future generations as well.
We can continue for another hour but it's only the second day we're here in Guizhou, we've already experienced so much, we've seen so much, we have so much to share, and that brings us to the end of today's roundtable.
We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's topic which is Guizhou and hopefully you can let us know whether or not you have been here previously, and you have your personal own stories about Guizhou province, and hopefully let us know what interests you the most so that we can go to the places and find out the stories that we specifically told for you.
I am your host Li -Ming, Yu -Hsuan, and Fei -Fei for today's roundtable, thank you so much for listening, we'll see you next time, see you in Guizhou, deal with China Horizons.
Thank you so much. Bye bye everybody!
Bye!
