Flocking to an eagle's lair

Yaoshang village in a mountainous area of Guizhou province is set to attract tourists with its beautiful scenery and traditional customs. [Photo by Cui Qin/For China Daily]

The ethnic Gelao people are turning their village into a green destination for travelers, Sun Ye reports in Shiqian county, Guizhou province.

On Feb 1 every year, Deng Kaijun and his family members rise early to prepare dishes of pork, lamb and sweets in honor of the main god of their ethnic group - an eagle.

The bird is also the totem of the Gelao people in Southwest China's Guizhou province.

In their prayers, the tribespeople seek the eagle's blessings for a year of "moderate wind and rain", and step out of their houses to place glutinous rice cakes on tree branches for birds in general.

These days, eagles are rarely sighted in this part of the country.

Deng, 50, runs a restaurant in Yaoshang village, which is located near the Foding Mountain. He says the Gelao people's reverence of nature is a tradition that has continued well into this day even when the majority of the villagers no longer live off farming or collecting herbs.

Some 300 residents of this village - almost all of them from the Gelao ethnic group - have recently taken to ecotourism as has Deng.

They are building restaurants and hotels for tourists who typically come from nearby cities for a quiet time on the mountain. The Gelao's ecological way of life, of course, adds to the charm.

While the Foding Mountain is a national forest park, Yaoshang village has transformed itself into some sort of a holiday resort for outsiders in the past few years.