Mo Yan’s hometown of Gaomi in Shangdong provice, become a hot scenic spot after the Nobel Prizes, as it is where many of Mo’s novels take places.
Gaomi is no longer the previous Gaomi, which has reached China’s literary height, said Li Danping, a poet from Gaomi.
Gaomi doesn’t have abundant tourism resources. There are neither hills nor rivers, but only flat plains. Mo Yan provides the kind of unprecedented opportunity that the local government never wants to miss.
The local tourism administration first began the “scenic creating” works. Wang Jianzhi, president of Gaomi tourism administration held a micro-blog event on October 15 to let people vote for their favorite geographical scenes in Mo Yan’s books.
According to Wang, these selected geographical scenes help to attract investment and become the key development targets of the local government.
Meanwhile, the local committee of Mo Yan’s hometown proposed on Monday a plan to invest 670 million yuan into building a tourism site in Gaomi, including to plant over 10,000 mu (1 mu = 666.67 m2) of red sorghum to recreate the scenery in Mo Yan’s book, “RedSorghum”.
“RedSorghum”, one of the best-known novels of Mo Yan was adapted into a film, which won the Golden Bear at the The 38th Berlin Festival. Director Zhang Yimou and actress Gong Li both became popular in part thanks to the film.
However, local farmers are not willing to plant red sorghum any more as it has little economic value. The committee has encouraged farmers by subsidizing one yuan for 500 grams red sorghum, which failed. This time, the committee increased the subsidy to 1000 yuan per mu, showing its great ambition.
“The plan is high-risk as sorghum itself can hardly develop into a profitable industry, but 10,000 mu red sorghum means investing 10 million yuan before any profit,” said Fan Wei, director of the local committee, “but we expect the government to approve this plan as great investment can bring big development.”
Development of celebrity tourism resources is quite common in China, or even in the world-- several cities fighting for celebrities' old houses is not an uncommon sight in China.
Just as a Chinese old saying goes, “Culture works as a platform for economic development,” Mo Yan’s hometown is expecting cultural investment to bring about further development.
Despite development plans, Mo Yan keeps a low profile, reminding the local government to be down-to-earth.
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