TOP: File photo taken in 2007 shows students having a P.E. lesson at a primary school in Dizhengdang Village, Dulongjiang Township, Gongshan Dulong and Nu Autonomous County, southwest China's Yunnan Province. BOTTOM: Photo taken on Oct. 31, 2020 shows students having a P.E. lesson at Dulongjiang Nine-Year Comprehensive School in Dulongjiang Township of Gongshan Dulong and Nu Autonomous County, southwest China's Yunnan Province. (Photo taken by Hu Chao) Dulong is a mountain-dwelling ethnic group in southwest China. It is one of the least populous of China's 56 minority nationalities. It is also called a "direct-transition" minority ethnic group because the Dulong people didn't bid farewell to primitive life until the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 and since then they directly stepped into the socialist society. Most Dulong people live in Dulongjiang Township, where an inhospitable mountainous terrain had been thwarting the town's development for decades. Thus, the township had been one of the poorest area in Yunnan Province and even in the entire country. But the local economic and social development has been fast-tracked in recent years when many difficulties that bottlenecked the development were eliminated thanks to state and provincial efforts. For example, the town built better infrastructure, developed specialized industries and enrolled high-quality talents. In 2018, the Dulong ethnic group shook off poverty as a whole, a phenomenal breakthrough. Nowadays, all of the 1,100-plus households in Dulongjiang have moved into new, better residences. Many residents are now engaged in herbal planting and poultry husbandry with local characteristics. All of the six administrative villages have access to roads with hard surfaces and signals of radio and TV, and are all covered by the 4G network. All villagers benefit from a critical illness insurance program. Meanwhile, the youngsters are entitled to 14 years of free education which lasts from pre-school classes to high school education. The rate of primary school attendance and that of enrollment into schools for higher levels have both remained 100 percent. Nowadays, Dulongjiang is no longer the isolated, conservative and backward region it used to be. The Dulong people here are embracing modern life at a faster pace and are keeping pace with the outside world. (Xinhua)
