"Though having no air conditions in those years, China was not short of cool mountains. But no mountain other than Lushan had so many nice villas to accommodate more than 1,000 CPC Central Committee members, nor could they compare traffic and living facilities with Lushan," Cui Xiaoyi said, "It' s natural that Lushan was picked to be the country' s top meeting place in summer."

But except Meilu and a few other villas, these century-old luxuries are now filled with people all year long. "A villa of less than 300 square meters is usually home to seven or eight families. Some villas even have temporary kitchens and bathrooms built alongside them," Cui said.

Li Zhen, manager of the scenic compound consisting of six old villas in Lushan' s east valley, thought the relocation of the inhabitants would help both maintain and re-plan the villas.

Working for a tourism development company in Wuhan, central China' s Hubei Province, Li first came to Lushan in 2002 and was shocked to see the old villas, mostly in dilapidated conditions, were used as residences, guest houses and dining halls. So he rented six villas, including one used to be inhabited by Nobel Prize laureate Pearl S. Buck, and started to develop them into a scenic spot since 2003. Li named his project Stories of Old Villas.

"Before my project, no one here realized the history and stories of these villas could be good resources for tourism. It was hard to imagine that the mountain was among the first to activate tourism industry in China after the reform and opening-up policy was implemented in 1979," Li said.

Before 1979, tourism remained to be a strange concept to Chinese. Mao' s repeated visits to Lushan added more political influence to the mountain, and it became an honorable place to receive Party cadres, model workers and heroes for vacations between the 1960s and the 1970s.

"Awarded by their work units, they gathered here from May till October every year to enjoy a casual time," Yin Yinyuan, a retired local commerce official, recalled, "but no one came as individual tourists, and the public didn't even have the idea of 'tourism' at all."

The situation lasted until 1980 after the release of a hugely popular film called Romance on Lushan, which tells a story about the daughter of a retired Kuomintang general who comes back from the United States to revisit the mountain and falls in love with the son of a CPC general.

The free pursuit of love, with the backdrop of Lushan' s picturesque landscape in the movie, was a hit through China after 10 years of Cultural Revolution and attracted millions of people to the mountain that year.

"There were no hotels then, so people swarmed into villas, classrooms and theaters. But there were still not enough indoor place, and many had to slept on road," Yin recalled.

About 2 million people visited Lushan every year in the early 1980s, triggering an unexpected economic transition for the mountain. "Schools started to charge visitors accommodation fees, and the mountain also began to sell admission tickets, fostering a sprout of the tourism economy," Yin said.

Even with its political fame fading under the market economy, Lushan still had its leading edges. "It had the most visitors, and built the first and best three-star hotel in the province," he said.

However, little progress has been made since the mid 1990s and Lushan has lagged behind. Planners find it' s now imperative to wake up its past glory.

"The relocation plan, part of our long-term development plan for Lushan, will also help ease the water pollution caused by residents and tourists, and make the mountain a more comfortable place for vacations, just as what model workers had enjoyed decades ago," Cui Xiaoyi said.

The government will give subsidies to the relocated residents and sell the new homes to them at a half the market value.

Not sure whether he himself will be included in the relocation, Yu Hongxing is not opposed to move. Actually, he has bought an apartment in Jiujiang City, although it' s still hard for him to think about giving up his home and business on Lushan.

"The winter is hard on the mountain. It is cold and many elderly people suffer rheumatism and arthritis," he said.

Yu also believed the children were looking forward to moving "because they are always wanting to know about the life outside the mountain".

(Xinhua News Agency October 7, 2009)