Walk in the park: Heyuan’s lush countryside is a haven for hikers. Photo: Thomas Tang

With this in mind, the Hong Kong Institute for Promotion of Chinese Culture decided to see for itself, a year after the local government held the inaugural Hakka Culture Tourism Festival. I joined them, and over two days (the 6th and the 7th of May) visited cultural and nature sites in Heyuan city, on the Dongjiang River and in the surrounding countryside.

Three hours by coach from Shenzhen, Heyuan’s remoteness has made it unattractive to the kind of commerce and industry that has powered Hong Kong’s neighbour into one of the south’s economic boom-towns.

But this has proved a blessing in disguise, leaving its countryside unscarred, and its ancient precincts free from the developer’s wrecking ball.

Heyuan and its capital city of the same name is predominantly Hakka. The northern Chinese migrants began settling there from AD 300 and over the years established their own language and culture, distinct from those of the southern Cantonese.

Distinctive, too, are their enclosed village compounds – originally built with walls, gates and moats to allow the communities to safeguard their land-holding rights and to better defend themselves against roaming bandits that plagued the countryside. Hakka enclosed houses are ancestral homes and they hold records that help villagers trace their lineage back to the original migrants from the north. Villages that have retained aspects of these characteristics – the walled dwellings and courtyards, in particular – have been made the focus of Hakka cultural and tourist zones. Artefacts shed light on the pre-dominantly male-oriented culture of the Hakka.

Home truths: visitors from the Institute for Promotion of Chinese Culture, above, at the gate of Pan Village

We visited two villages: in the first, stood the Pan family house. Several centuries old, it used to be where the local government official presided over the villagers by day and by night over his own household. Within it, someone had displayed artefacts – bits and pieces, really – but while there was a village community, the Pan house was not lived in, and it showed in its dilapidation.

By contrast, the feature buildings at the Sujiawei enclosure – billed as the Sujiawei Hakka Tourist Zone – were in everyday use, and better maintained. The Sujiawei villagers eke out a small cottage enterprise by selling vegetables, herbs and sweets to tourists.

Heyuan County is in the upper reaches of the Dongjiang – also known as the East River, a tributary of the Pearl River, Guangdong’s major waterway and source of fresh water. A patchwork of farms patterning the river’s usually fertile floodplains is complemented by a lush countryside that affords visitors and locals alike many attractive walks. We traced the hilly origins of one tributary in the Wanhulu, or Evergreen Lake district.

The walk itself was pleasant and comfortable, but the experience spoilt by attempts at creating a carnival atmosphere: tacky amusement stalls – poorly patronized – a rusty roller-coaster and a tired horse with which you could have your picture taken. Even more bizarre was what greeted us at the end of the walk: set amongst the trees and the head of the tributary was a gaggle of locals in bathing suits, dancing under the spray of a series of showers fashioned out of pipes thrust into the rapid waters of the stream – all to the thumping of loud disco music.

Wanluhu lies six kilometres from Heyuan city. The biggest manmade reservoir in southern China, Evergreen has a freckling of islands that make for boat-ride destinations popular with the locals, while there are a variety of water sports on offer for the more vigorous. It hasn’t lived up to its moniker. Originally 370 square kilometres, a dramatic recession had bared the shocking ochre of once-submerged hill-tops. Local officials explained that five years of drought and sharply higher water consumption downstream forced the water-table to retreat.

High and dry: the dramatic effects of drought and a retreating water-table on Waluhu and its water recreation activities

Heyuan city lies on the banks of the Dongjiang. It prides itself on its unsullied environment – and rightly so. On the cusp of maturing into a city, it has the trappings of modernity but has yet to shake off the mantle of a rural township. While it hasn’t been subjected to the flood of migrant workers that heavily industrialised cities has, a telling sign that its citizenry has yet to come to grips fully with the service culture is that many of the younger workers in the hotels and the catering trades were noticeably from outside Heyuan.

The city did, though, show how just a little imagination can create a tourist spectacle. Dancing fountains – vivid plumes of water thrown up from the Dongjiang and coloured by hidden spotlights – were a highlight of the two days. There are regular shows several times each night.

One claim to fame that Heyuan could take better advantage of is its reputation as home to the world’s largest cache of dinosaur egg fossils – a Guinness record. First discovered near the city in 1996, the collection has grown to include a complete dinosaur fossil – which with more than 10,000 fossilised eggs is housed in a museum. The city has only just signed a one-billion-yuan contract to build a world-class dinosaur park.

The trip was an interesting insight into how Heyuan, essentially still a rural town, is trying to position itself as a tourism destination. Its two main draw-cards, the Hakka cultural and tourist zones and the country walks, were in themselves charming and offered a variety of activities and attractions.

But if the Hakka Tourism festival and the district are to become regular appointments for tourists and for eco-tourism to develop successfully, Heyuan will need more investment, a better tourism promotion programme – including more knowledgeable guides who can communicate well – and better transport access.

Key to these is a commitment from the authorities to use funds more effectively, and – vitally – to ensure that in the rush of success the environment remains the treasure that it is.

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