Field Research to Dong Village: Suggestions & Implications

This morning, we talked to the chairman of the Dong village. He thoroughly walked us through the history and background of the village, specifically on the village’s poverty alleviation from past to present. We were informed in-depth about what each official did for the villagers and how they cooperated.

Later, he showed us the prototypes of three souvenirs: glutinous rice, glutinous rice wine, and salted duck eggs. The packaging of the three boxes appeared very normal. There were no signs to depict the Dong Nationality or any special aspect about the village that could symbolize the specialties of these souvenirs.

So here is a huge problem, this village relies on travelers and most of their income comes from tourists. However, after three days of conducting research at this village, I find out that there are not a lot of activities to do other than looking around at the beautiful scenes of the village. There aren’t sufficient activities, restaurants, and shops for travelers.

After realizing this issue, my parents and I discussed and proposed some solutions to the chairman. Firstly, we suggested that the souvenirs should be more unique to the village and publicize the village more to grasp future visitors’ attentions. This will help inflate the income of the village. Secondly, we suggested that the village could arrange more entertaining activities for travelers to experience. For example, there is a traditional festival called the Festival of Carrying the Coffin, where the villagers carry the sedan with the most important people from the village. We saw that this could be traditional activity that travelers can participate in when they arrive at the village. Thirdly, the village could be promoted more frequently with more information through videos online to have people learn and familiarize themselves about their culture. At last, we shared contact information of people who could help with these suggestions to the chairman.

As a closing thought, I want to share an idea I discussed with my father today: young generation is the key of solving the poverty issue around the world. Only the future generations who have the consciousness of poverty can take action into solving the issue completely in the future.