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Wei Fenglian, an 82-year-old woman living in China's 2022 Winter Olympics skiing venue of Chongli, does not have to worry about being a financial burden to her three children to provide aged nursing care for her, as she is entitled to benefits from a ski resort in the Olympic town.
Dongmaokeling Village where Wei lives has granted the village's land to the Fulong Ski Resort, which has been known for its annual 101-day skiing festival drawing 920,000 tourists in 2019.
Nestled in snow-capped mountains, the village used to be impoverished. All of Wei's children have left the village to find work.
Li Hai, Party chief of the village, said Wei receives over 8,000 yuan (1,121 U.S. dollars) of annual dividends from the Fulong Ski Resort from leasing her land as shares in the resort. She also has other sources of income ranging from minimum subsistence allowances and aged pension to subsidies of returning farmland to forests.
Chongli, a district of Zhangjiakou City in north China's Hebei Province, is situated 200 km northwest of Beijing. It has become a popular skiing destination since it was selected to stage most of the skiing events of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.
The mountainous district had 16.8 percent of its population of over 100,000 living under the national poverty line in 2015, when Beijing won the Winter Olympics bid to co-host the event with the city of Zhangjiakou.
Taking the Winter Olympics as an opportunity, Beijing and Zhangjiakou have sped up inter-city infrastructure building. A number of the largest projects have been built, including the Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed rail line, which was put into operation at the end of 2019.
In Chongli, nearly 30,000 people are employed by sports and tourism-related industries. In May 2019, the district was officially lifted out of poverty.
In addition to winter sports, Chongli has become a host for international competitions such as 168 Ultra-Trail Challenge, BMW HTC China Relay and the world's endurance sport of Spartan Race.
In January 2019, Chongli was selected by New York Times as one of the "52 places to travel to in 2019" for its booming ski industry.
Yang Zhiguo, a Chongli district poverty alleviation official, said that the district authorities have coordinated the organizers of the events to give priorities of job opportunities to the poor in the region.
Shi Yuping, a 43-year-old mother of two children from Xishizigou Village, Chongli, works as a waitress in Fulong Ski Resort.
"With the income, I don't have to look for jobs away from home," said Shi.
