Ａ Ｍａｎ ａｎｄ Ｈｉｓ Ｄｒｅａｍ Ｗｏｒｌｄ

Zi Xudong， a man of the Yi minority， comes from a small mountain village in Dali， Yunan Province in southwestern China. It is not unusual for a man like him to have big dreams if one considers where he comes from. The picturesque Cangshan Mountain in Dali stretches 60 kilometers， its 19 snow-capped peaks towering into sky and 18 streams meandering through valleys and plains before emptying into Erhai Lake， China’s seventh largest freshwater body. Dali has more than gorgeous natural beauty to offer. In history， 41 kings of Nanzhao Kingdom (738-937) and Dali Kingdom (937-1253) ruled there for nearly 600 years altogether， spanning the years from almost the whole Tang Dynasty up to the Song Dynasty.In their prime times， the two kingdoms covered a large part of today’s southwestern China and Vietnam.

Zi Xudong is the only college graduate from that small mountainous village. So it is only natural that Zi Xudong has big dreams to develop some tourist attractions to boost Dali. In June， 1995， he quit his government job and began to work in tourism. Today， he is the deputy manager of the Dali Tourism Group. This business position may look simple， but it has turned this dreamer into an excellent developer of tourist attractions.

The first development project that Zi Xudong undertook was to turn one of the three islands in the Erhai Lake into a tourism destination. The 7.5-hectare island is called Golden Shuttle， but all it had at that time was 187 tombs. With a dream about the future of the island， he wrote more than 400 reports， organized 21 evaluation seminars， and lobbied for and acquired approval from 157 government agencies. Yet， the red tape was not the most difficult part of the task. It was to relocate the tombs from the isle. In China， digging ancestral tombs is frequently regarded as an absolute no-no. Zi Xudong tried verbal persuasion at first， but none of the villagers would say yes. Then he invited the village head to the town and did a brilliant 3-day PR work on the village head. The village head decided to relocate his ancestral tombs. Villagers followed suit.

After the tombs were removed， the construction work began. The rocky isle lacked necessary 20，000 m3 of soil for the proposed afforestation. Zi Xudong studied the isle closely and decided to gather soil from between rocks. This approach saved a cost of 1.2 million yuan for outsourcing soil. To everyone’s surprise， the soil project also exposed a large group of scenic rockeries， which were later incorporated into the development plan.

The whole development plan was masterminded by Zi Xudong. An imperial palace， a large square， and a 17.56-meter-tall Guanyin statue were built. They reflect the history， culture of the Nanzhao Kingdom and cultural influences from the neighboring Tang Dynasty and Tibet. Inside the imperial palace is a modern hotel. Today the isle is a dream tourist attraction rated as an AAAA national scenic zone.

Zi Xudong did not rest on the laurels of the Golden Shuttle project. In 1999， he learned that Zhang Jizhong， a heavyweight CCTV producer， planned to adapt Luis Cha’s “Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils” into a television series. Zi immediately realized what it meant for Dali， for the novel is partly based on the history of Dali Kingdom. So he lobbied local leadership of Dali and organized a team to visit Zhang Jizhong in Beijing. They persuaded Zhang Jizhong to film the martial-art blockbuster in Dali. Two years later， the film and television shooting base， initiated and planned by Zi Xudong， was completed. The 40-episode television drama was filmed there. And more television dramas have been filmed in Dali since the martial-art blockbuster.

Butterfly Spring， a legendary tourism attraction made famous by a 1959 feature film， used to be a must for tourists visiting Dali. The scene of butterflies and the crystal stream decayed over years due to unfavorable changes in nature. Zi Xudong came up with a big idea to bring the legendary charms back. The first two phases of the restoration project were completed in 2004. The whole scenic area was expanded to about 20 hectares and the spring head pond was deepened to 6 meters. More than 100 butterfly species were reintroduced. It is said that the third phase will expand the butterfly park to 200 hectares and a movie house will be built to screen a movie about the life and death of butterflies.

The Chongsheng Temple is another tourism highlight masterminded by Zi Xudong. Historically， Dali was a crossroads of cultural exchanges in Asia， a gateway of the South Silk Road and a key outpost on the Ancient Tea-Horse Route. Chongsheng served as the national temple of Nanzhao and Dali kingdoms. At its prime time， the temple had 990 rooms， 11，400 bronze statues made of over 20，000 km of bronze at the cost of 700，000 man-days. Of the 22 emperors of the Dali Kingdom， nine gave up the throne and became a monk at the temple. The magnificent Buddhist sanctuary came to ruins in the later period of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) with only two pagodas left intact.

The restored temple， a project of 193 million yuan， occupies an area of about 67 hectares and has 617 new statues， 599 of which are coated with gold leaves. A grand unveiling ceremony was held in July 12， 2006. One hundred and eight respected monks from China and neighboring countries and regions joined hands in unveiling the temple 150 years after its destruction.

Zi Xudong is more than a developer for tourism attractions. He is also a man of ideas for publicizing Dali. He has masterminded various media campaigns and cultural activities to make Dali known to the world.

What is his next big dream? It is called “Dali Conjecture”. Where are the mausoleums of the 40 plus emperors and kings of the two kingdoms? People have wondered for hundreds of years. Zi Xudong is thinking if this mystery can be developed to attract more tourists to Dali.□