Chongli aims for the peak in skiing

Industry brings new jobs for youngsters

There was a time when the only promising career path for young people in Chongli was to leave the small county in Hebei province for jobs in nearby cities like Beijing and Tianjin.

But with the local ski industry flourishing, young people like Zhai Yujia are increasingly choosing to stay to take advantage of job offers at budding ski resorts and in the fledging regional tourism industry.

"I felt so fortunate to be able to find a decent job at home after graduating from college in Shandong province," said Zhai, who was hired by the Genting Resort Secret Garden as a ski instructor in 2014 after obtaining a coach's license from the Chinese Ski Association.

"With more ski resorts, hotels and shops opening in recent years, a lot of my peers don't need to struggle in the competitive job market of other places, and they are returning home to work," the 20-year-old said.

Now, with the county involved in Beijing's bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics, the scale of the regional ski industry will further expand, creating more jobs at new resorts, restaurants and hotels.

Liu Yun, a senior ski coach at Genting Resort, said Genting's ski school is planning to recruit 50 more instructors this ski season, as its current 100-coach crew is often short-handed during the weekends.

Li Li, Party chief of the county, envisions residents' average income significantly improving if Beijing wins the bid.

"Because of the growing interest in skiing and the publicity over the bid, our county has been flooded with visitors from nearby, big-market cities, and they have been willing to spend money," Li said.

According to the county government, local farmers' average monthly income rose to 7,880 yuan ($1,270) in 2013, from less than 1,000 yuan in 2003. One-sixth of Chongli's nearly 20,000 residents have skiing-related jobs.

Skiers get edge on their early season training at resort

Teaching a winter training camp in China has been a routine for Oba Junji, a Japanese alpine ski coach, for the past eight years.

Oba, who is also an official with the Ski Association of Japan, led more than 200 young Japanese skiers to Chongli in November to begin training. He has done so since 2007, when he first came to the mountainous county in Hebei province for the inaugural International Ski Federation ranking race.

The long ski season in Chongli, usually lasting from November to April, as well as versatile resort choices, has attracted a growing number of international skiers like Oba's contingent from neighboring counties for early-season training.

"Japan has much more abundant snowfalls than China in winter, but the temperature in Japan is still not cold enough to groom training trails in early winter," the 56-year-old former Japan No 6 alpine skier told China Daily recently at Wanlong Ski Resort in Chongli.

"Our snowfall in December is not sufficient for training, so we started here to prepare for the coming races earlier than we could in Japan."

Though abundant snowfall is not guaranteed, the cold and dry high-altitude climate in Chongli creates an ideal environment to groom firm and flat racing slopes with artificial snow, said Yu Donglin, general manager of Wanlong.

"The lack of natural snow might affect the beauty of natural views in extremely dry winters, but man-made snow is good enough to make slopes for races," Yu said.

As one of the county's four major commercial ski resorts, Wanlong catered to 280 Japanese and South Korean skiers. They stayed about 20 days before competing at the Far East Cup, an International Ski Federation ranking event held at the resort from Dec 11 to 14.

International events such as the Far East Cup have helped the ski resort cluster in Chongli earn global recognition as an emerging elite skiing race destination in Asia, which is in line with the county's joint bid with Beijing for the 2022 Winter Olympics.

The International Ski Federation men's slalom ranking race is also held annually at another major resort in Chongli, Genting Secret Garden, while a new regional level event on the World Snowboard Tour debuted at Chongli's Dolomiti Mountain Resort in late December.

Genting Secret Garden has also staged an annual grand ski festival for 14 consecutive years.

"The ski industry in Japan enjoyed booming momentum during the Winter Olympics in 1972 (Sapporo) and 1998 (Nagano). I believe a similar thing will happen in China if Beijing wins the bid," Oba said.