GBP Chapter 383 Propaganda
Chapter 383 Propaganda
After leaving the Lady Shexiang Museum, Lu Ran and Shen Yuege took another stroll around the Wumeng Mountain Scenic Area.
The scenic area is quite large, and in addition to the museum and the grassland, there are several Yi ethnic villages scattered in the mountains.
The village is small, with only a few dozen households. The houses are built of stone and wood, with blue tiles on the roofs and whitewash on the walls. Some walls are painted with Yi ethnic totems—the sun, the moon, and torches—with bold and powerful lines.
Shen Yuege saw several elderly Yi people doing embroidery in a village and went over to watch for a while.
The elderly people had very skillful hands; their stitches were so fine they looked like they were machine-sewn. The patterns were traditional Yi ethnic designs, with red, yellow, and black colors combined together, creating a festive look.
An old woman noticed Shen Yuege's interest and took out a half-embroidered apron from her basket, handing it to her while speaking in Yi language, which neither Lu Ran nor Shen Yuege could understand.
A young woman came over to translate, saying that the old lady had asked her if she wanted to learn.
Shen Yuege certainly wanted to learn.
She took the needle and thread and, under the old lady's guidance, sewed a few stitches, but they were crooked and uneven, far inferior to the old lady's stitches.
The old woman looked at her work and smiled broadly, saying something that the young woman translated as, "The old woman said you have a lot of talent."
Lu Ran added from the side, "The translator is a good person."
Shen Yuege glared at him and continued to clumsily embroider.
There is a rhododendron forest outside the village, but unfortunately it is not in bloom this season.
The young woman said that every year in March and April, the azaleas bloom all over the mountains, in red, pink, white and purple, which is very beautiful.
At that time, there would be many more tourists coming to Wumeng Mountain, all of whom would come to see the flowers.
Shen Yuege asked her, "Are there usually many tourists?"
The young woman shook her head: "Not many. Except for the flowering season and National Day and Spring Festival, there aren't many people. Our local promotion is poor, and many people don't know what's fun in Wumeng Mountain. Those who do know just think it's too far and they don't want to come."
Shen Yuege glanced at Lu Ran but didn't say anything.
After leaving the village, the two went to a place called "Weining Caohai".
Caohai is located at the foot of Wumeng Mountain. It is a plateau freshwater lake. The lake is not large, but the water is very clear. The lakeside is covered with reeds and cattails. When the wind blows, the reeds rustle, as if someone is talking in hushed tones.
Several small wooden boats floated on the lake, and the boatmen, wearing straw hats, slowly rowed the boats with bamboo poles.
Shen Yuege wanted to take a boat, so Lu Ran went to negotiate the price with the boatman. The boatman was an old man in his sixties with tanned skin and spoke with a thick Guizhou accent.
Lu Ran argued with him for a long time, and finally settled on a price of eighty yuan, which would take an hour.
The two people boarded the boat, and the boatman tapped the shore with a bamboo pole, and the small wooden boat swayed gently towards the center of the lake.
Shen Yuege sat at the bow of the boat, dipping her hand into the water to splash around. The water was cool, but not like the biting cold of winter; it was the unique coolness of mountain spring water.
[At this point, I hope readers will remember our domain name: 202ᴋᴋs.ᴄᴏᴍ]
"This water is so clean," Shen Yuege said. "If the rivers in Shanghai were this clean, I would go swimming every day."
"Try swimming in the Huangpu River; once you go in, you won't be able to come back up."
"Could you please stop saying such discouraging things?"
Lu Ran wisely shut his mouth, leaned against the wooden plank at the stern of the boat, and looked at the sky above.
The sky over Wumeng Mountain is very blue, so blue it looks like it's been washed. A few white clouds drift slowly by, shaped like cotton candy, making you want to take a bite.
The boatman punted the boat, humming a little tune. The tune was very simple, just a few lines repeated over and over.
After listening for a while, Lu Ran felt that the tune was somewhat similar to a Yi folk song he had heard in his previous life, but not exactly the same.
"Grandpa, what are you singing?" he asked.
The boatman stopped, turned around, looked at him, and said something with a smile.
Lu Ran didn't understand, so the boatman repeated it in heavily accented Mandarin: "'Axi Lixi,' a song of our Yi ethnic group."
"It sounds great." Lu Ran gave a thumbs up.
The boatman laughed and continued humming.
Shen Yuege turned her head from the bow of the boat and whispered, "This place is really nice. The water is clear, the mountains are beautiful, and the people are nice too. It's just a pity that not many people come here."
"The promotion is inadequate," Lu Ran said. "If this place were in the Yangtze River Delta region, it would be packed with people. Sell tickets for 180 yuan, boat tickets for 100 yuan, and set up a few photo spots in the middle of the lake. Making hundreds of millions a year would be a piece of cake."
"Why is your mind always focused on business?"
"It's not about business, it's about reality. A good location is useless if nobody knows about it. What's the point of having the best products if nobody comes?"
Shen Yuege thought about it and felt that what he said made sense.
When the boat reached the middle of the lake, the boatman stopped and pointed to the bottom of the lake.
Lu Ran looked down and saw patches of green aquatic plants growing on the bottom of the water, swaying back and forth in the water, like an underwater grassland.
Several small fish can be seen swimming among the water plants, their silvery-white bodies shimmering in the water.
"This is where the name 'Grass Sea' comes from," Lu Ran said. "The lakebed is covered with aquatic plants, hence the name Grass Sea."
"How do you know everything?"
"I looked it up. I looked at it when I had nothing else to do."
"How much have you actually researched when you have nothing better to do?"
"Much more than you imagine."
Shen Yuege was too lazy to ask any more questions and continued to look at the fish at the bottom of the water.
It was almost dark when we returned from Caohai.
The two found a parking lot and parked their RV. Just as they were about to cook dinner, the young girl they had seen in the village ran over, carrying a bamboo basket.
"Our village chief heard you were here and asked me to bring you some food." She handed over a basket containing a large bowl of cured meat, a dish of pickled vegetables, several roasted potatoes, and a pot of rice wine.
Lu Ran took the basket, somewhat embarrassed: "How could I accept this?"
The young woman smiled and said, "It's rare for you city folks to come all this way, and the village chief said we can't let our guests go hungry. Just leave your bowls there after you've finished eating, and I'll come and collect them tomorrow."
After saying that, she ran away, running as fast as a rabbit.
Shen Yuege looked at the contents of the basket, remained silent for a moment, and then suddenly said, "These people are so honest. We just took a walk around the village, and they taught us embroidery and gave us food."
"That's just how the people in the mountains are. If you treat them well, they'll treat you even better. If you don't treat them well, they won't hold it against you; at most, they'll just stop associating with you next time. It's that simple."
"If only city people were like this."
"If city dwellers were all like this, Shanghai would never have traffic jams. Everyone is giving way to each other, and no one is too embarrassed to go first."
Shen Yuege was amused by his analogy and took the items out of the basket one by one and placed them on the table.
The cured pork is cut into thick slices, with alternating layers of fat and lean meat; it can be eaten after being heated in a pot.
The pickled cabbage is made from leafy greens and has a very authentic sour taste, making it a perfect accompaniment to cured meat.
The roasted potatoes were freshly taken out of the charcoal fire, roasted to a golden brown on the outside and soft and fluffy on the inside, bursting with flavor with every bite.
The two of them had a simple dinner with rice wine. The rice wine wasn't very strong and was sweet. Shen Yuege drank two bowls, and her face turned red, and her eyes became a little unfocused.
"Don't drink too much," Lu Ran said.
"I didn't drink too much. This wine is like a soft drink; it won't make you drunk."
"You didn't say that last time you were drinking a beverage."
"The drink I had last time was a real beverage."
Lu Ran was too lazy to argue with her, so he got up, cleared away the dishes, and went to wash them.
Shen Yuege sat in the booth, hugging a cushion, staring blankly at the night sky outside the car window.
There are no streetlights in the Wumeng Mountains at night. When it gets dark, it's truly dark, the kind of darkness where you can't see your hand in front of your face.
But the stars in the sky were exceptionally bright, densely packed, as if someone had scattered a handful of crushed diamonds across the heavens.
"Lu Ran, come out and see," she called out.
Lu Ran wiped his hands, walked over, and followed her gaze to look up at the sky.
It's truly beautiful. In Shanghai's night sky, only a few of the brightest stars are visible; the rest are obscured by the city lights.
The Wumeng Mountains are different. There is no light pollution here, and the Milky Way can be seen clearly. A pale white band of light stretches across the sky, as if someone has drawn a stroke in the sky with a brush.
"Isn't it beautiful?" Shen Yuege said.
"nice."
"Take a picture."
Lu Ran took out his phone and took a picture, but it came out as a dark blur, and he couldn't see anything.
"You can't capture this with a mobile phone," he said. "You need a professional camera."
"Then go back and buy a professional camera. Take pictures next time you go out."
"When will it be next time?"
"I don't know. When you have time."
Lu Ran smiled, didn't reply, put his phone away, and sat down next to her.
The two sat quietly in the darkness, neither of them speaking.
The nights in the mountains are very quiet, with the occasional chirping of insects, followed by silence again.
The distant mountains, silhouetted against the sky, resembled giant beasts lying on the ground, sleeping peacefully.
After a long while, Shen Yuege suddenly spoke up: "Lu Ran, what do you think we should do with these people?"
"Who is it?"
"The people here. The old people, the children. When we were walking around the village just now, did you see those children? They were all wearing old clothes, some even with patches. In this day and age, there are still children wearing patched clothes."
Lu Ran saw it.
As he was walking around the village, he saw several children squatting by the roadside playing with pebbles. Their pants had patches on the knees, and their shoes were worn out.
The children's faces were red from the cold, and snot hung from their lips, but their eyes were bright, and they looked at people with a timid curiosity.
"They can't get out," Shen Yuege continued. "It's not that they don't want to go out, it's that they don't have the money. Let alone going to Shanghai, even going to Guiyang would cost them half a month's income just for the round-trip transportation and accommodation. Not to mention the elderly, they've never left the mountains in their entire lives, and they've barely even been to the county town a few times."
She paused, her voice softening: "The Lady Shexiang we saw in the museum today knew six hundred years ago that we needed to build roads, facilitate trade, and help people in the mountains get out. Six hundred years have passed, the roads have been built, but people still can't get out."
Lu Ran leaned back in his seat, staring at the starry sky outside the car window.
Shen Yuege is right.
The road has been repaired, but people can't get out.
It's not that the road is difficult to travel, it's that we're poor.
They were so poor that they didn't even have the courage to go out, because going out would cost money, and if they spent money, they wouldn't be able to eat. If they couldn't eat, they might as well stay in the mountains.
At least there's still a piece of land in the mountains where we can grow some corn and potatoes, so we won't starve.
To get them out, you have to get the people outside in first.
Traveling is the fastest way.
Where there are visitors, there is consumption. Where there is consumption, there is income. With income, people don't need to go out to work; they can earn money right at their doorstep. With the money they earn, they can support their children's education, and with education, their children can go to university. Once they go to university, they can leave the mountains and never have to come back.
This is a virtuous circle.
But the prerequisite is—someone comes.
How do we get people to come? Through publicity.
How to promote it? Singing is the fastest way.
A good song can make a place popular for decades.
The song "Chengdu" in its previous life caused long queues at the small bars on Yulin Road for ten years; "Go to Dali" inspired countless artistic youths to pack their bags and head to Yunnan; "Kangding Love Song" has been sung for decades, and Kangding is still a popular tourist destination.
Lu Ran started thinking about that song.
Lady Shexiang.
The song by Phoenix Legend in their previous life had a brisk rhythm and catchy melody, and the lyrics described places like Wumeng Mountain, Weining Grass Sea, and Baili Rhododendron.
How popular was that song?
It became so popular that people all over the country would unconsciously hum "The Wumeng Mountains connect to mountains beyond mountains, the moonlight shines on Xiangshui Beach..."
The song became so popular that many people traveled to Guizhou Province after listening to it, just to see if the places described in the lyrics were really that beautiful.
Moreover, that song was a duet.
The duet, one high-pitched and the other low-pitched, one bold and the other tender, was a perfect match for him and Shen Yuege.
He is a king-level producer in the music industry, and Shen Yuege is a queen-level singer. It's no surprise that a song they sing together will generate so much buzz.