Tourists visit "Singing Stones", an artistic community combining homestay hotels, handicraft workshops and small restaurants, in Beigang village, Pingtan county, Fujian province, in December. ZHANG BIN/CHINA NEWS SERVICE
A tourism boom is raising living standards for residents of a granite outcrop off the coast of Southeast China.
Houses look like forts."This ancient folk saying from Pingtan, an island county in Fujian province, bears witness to the area's desolate state in days gone by.
Haitan, the largest of the 126 islands that form the county, which lies off Fujian's coast, is a granite outcrop. In the past, local fishermen used the stone to build sturdy homes that would keep the strong winds at bay, forming several unique stone house complexes in the process.
Now, the old saying that speaks of the island as a land of stone is being turned on its head as locals and newcomers inject fresh vitality into the ancient houses.
Beigang, or "North Harbor", village lies in a bay in the northeast of Haitan, China's fifth-largest island. Rows of gray stone houses stand on a small hill facing the sea, with their backs nestled against the slopes of a heavily forested mountain.
The two-story houses are made from large stones - some rectangular, others irregular - and have very small windows. Rocks have been placed on each of the red roof tiles to stop the wind from blowing them away.
The formerly abandoned buildings have been upgraded into homestay hotels, handicraft workshops and small restaurants that cater for visitors who come to experience the island's history and lifestyle.
Visitors to a small artistic community called "Singing Stones" can hear the melodies created by people hitting different-sized stones with hammers, causing them to produce musical notes.
The stones are laid out on a wooden table in front of the homestay. Each stone is marked with a musical note and a score has been pinned to the back of the table so visitors can play Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.
Maotouqian village, a tourist attraction in Pingtan, has retained its traditional architecture after renovation. ZHANG BIN/CHINA NEWS SERVICE
Opportunities
Although the granite is a useful resource for building dwellings, the barren land and a lack of drinking water mean life is hard on the island. Sweet potato porridge is still the predominant local dish, because the arid land is only suitable for the cultivation of crops that can endure drought - mainly sweet potatoes and peanuts.
"The poor life on the island forced young people to leave and look for work outside, while the old people stayed and fished for a living," said Chen Yuqin, head of Beigang.
In addition to fishing and shipping, tunnel construction has long been an employment mainstay. The unyielding terrain meant the people of Pingtan had to dig underground chambers to store goods and food, so they became adept at tunneling.
They are still renowned in the industry, and many locals run construction companies that specialize in tunneling projects.
"By the 1990s, about 80 percent of all the tunnels in China had been dug by Pingtan people. Every family has at least one member in the industry," said Chen, who used to run his own tunneling company.
"People earned a lot from digging tunnels, but they had to leave their homes, so many houses in the village were unoccupied or even abandoned."
Pingtan is the closest part of the Chinese mainland to Taiwan - the city of Hsinchu is 68 nautical miles (126 kilometers) away across the Taiwan Straits. In the 1960s, when cross-Straits relations were tense, the county became the front line for troops, and local people were encouraged to dig bomb shelters and underground grain stores.
In recent years, though, Taiwan's close proximity has brought opportunities for Pingtan's residents.
In 2011, a direct ferry route was launched between Pingtan and Taiwan, with a journey time of three hours. In 2015, the county was designated a free trade zone, with the emphasis on attracting investors from Taiwan.
In 2016, the central government decided that the county would be expanded into an international tourism zone.
Lin Yi-chen (right), a co-founder of "Singing Stones", tidies a room in the homestay. ZHANG GUOJUN/XINHUA
New arrivals
Many businesspeople from Taiwan have taken the ferry across the Straits to try their fortunes in Pingtan. Lin Jhih-yuan, 30, founder of "Singing Stones", is one of them, arriving on Haitan in 2015.
In June that year, Lin and his wife opened a shop selling tea and handicrafts from Taiwan in Aoqian Taiwan Town, a duty-free market targeting businesses from Taiwan.
By the beginning of last month, 270 people from Taiwan had opened stores in the market, and the goods they imported from Taiwan had a combined value of 3.3 billion yuan ($491 million).
A short time after their arrival, Lin, his wife and some friends from Taiwan visited Beigang, because there is a place with the same name on Taiwan.
There were few young people in the village, so the primary school was empty and abandoned, but the visitors found the old stone houses fascinating.
"The bay is quiet and peaceful. The red roof tiles light up the gray buildings. From the roof of each house, one can see the sea. It's a really interesting place," Lin said.
After that, he and his wife visited the village regularly.
They had run a couple of homestays in Taiwan, so they decided to convert some of the old houses into similar lodgings for visitors.
In March 2016, they rented five houses and began refurbishing them with the help of several young people from Taiwan, including designers and architects.
"We wanted to make use of the existing resources, which contain the history of the island, and also put our ideas into these stones to find new possibilities for the ancient village," he said.
They lodged in villagers' houses, and talked with the locals to get ideas for their designs.
To their delight, they discovered that the local people could create melodies by hitting the rocks they collected from the nearby mountain.
"I wanted to revitalize the stones of Beigang via art and homestays," Lin said.
The couple decided to build an arts community in the village, featuring a combination of homestays, handicrafts and home-cooked food.
They decorated the handicraft workshop with old tables and chairs from the empty primary school, and with driftwood left behind at low tide.
Then they festooned the walls and ceiling with fishing nets that had been abandoned on the beach.
"Singing Stones" opened in the summer of 2016, after six months' preparatory work.
In front of the house, the couple placed the rock-strewn table that allows visitors to make "stone music"
Boom
As Beigang's first homestay, "Singing Stones" quickly attracted attention, which led to a growing number of visitors who wanted to make the stones "sing". Many television programs have also been shot there.
Two years ago, the "stone music" of the village featured on a special overseas edition of the Spring Festival Gala, broadcast by Fujian's South East Television on Lunar New Year's Eve.
In 2017, the village received 300,000 visitors. The number rose to 490,000 last year, resulting in total tourism revenue hitting 9.9 million yuan, according to Chen, the village head.
He said there are 241 stone houses in Beigang, and by last month, 64 of them had been transformed into homestays, while 12 had been turned into restaurants and 10 were operating as stores. Six other buildings are being refurbished.
"'Singing Stones' has helped to attract more people to the village from the Chinese mainland and Taiwan. They are looking for work or hoping to start their own businesses," Chen said.
In 2016, there were only three homestays in Beigang, and they were all operated by people from Taiwan. In 2017, local people opened five more.
According to the local government, by the end of last year, there were 77 homestays across Pingtan, and last month, Beigang's homestays offered about 300 rooms at an average nightly rate of 400 yuan.
"The local people wanted to live in modern apartment blocks after they got rich (from working elsewhere), and they never knew the old houses they tried to get away from could also bring them a good income," Chen said, adding that many former tunnel workers or fishermen have now moved into tourism.
Several small wooden fishing boats dot the bay. Most are unused, so their old fishing nets have become decorations in cafes.
The local people are busy preparing seafood for visitors, and the old melodies created by the stones "singing" can still be heard.
"Beigang has vitality now," Chen said.
