Across China: A hard battle: lifting impoverished ethnic people out of primitive life

Living deep in southwest China's karst rocky mountains, Lan Yuefen only has two household necessities in her house -- a bed made of a wooden slab on bricks and a cooking pot.

Houses in her village, Li'ao, in Nandan County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, are scattered across the mountains. People live in 24 groups, the furthest community is about a two-hour walk from the village center. There are literally no paths leading to many of the groups, and people have to cut their own trails through the moutain greenery.

Lan's fellow villagers' lives are no better than her own. Although they all live in brick houses, they have little of value inside.

The houses were built up in a government-sponsored flood-relief program last year, as mountain flashes damaged many of their old ones. But the new houses alone could not help lift the villagers out of poverty.

The Yao ethnic village, which has 2,000 inhabitants, still follows the traditional, primitive matriarchal society, where children only know their mothers. After so long living in solitude, not many know the names of their spouses or how old their offspring are.

Lan Yuefen, 31, only has the corn that she grows on small plots of land on the mountain slopes to feed her 13-year-old son.

"We have not had meat since winter," said her son Meng Mingsheng.

China aims to lift more than 70 million people above the poverty line before 2020, including these ethnic communities.

In January, Vice Premier Wang Yang visited Yunnan's minority groups, who are enjoying life under socialism after years of primitive living or serfdom.

He urged the local government to make targeted efforts to help all documented people out of poverty, and improve education and training to raise their own ability to shake off poverty.

In answer to the vice premier's call, local governments sent poverty-relief officials directly to the impoverished villages.

Zheng Yeqiang was one such official. He was dispatched to Li'ao to make changes during his two-year tenure.

"I am encouraging the villagers to communicate with the outside world," he said.

Young people were encouraged to look for jobs, while those that stayed in the village were offered help to sell their crops and produce outside of the area.

He said plans for paths and water conservation facilities were in the pipeline, too.

Li Huobao, a poverty-relief official sent to Bulangshan, a Lagu ethnic minority village in Yunnan, put improving hygiene habits as a priority.

He helped villagers devise methods to ensure garbage and livestock excrement was cleaned up in a timely, organized manner.

His next plan is to install kitchens and toilets in each house. Endi