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Agence France-Presse

Three caves in a remote village where the teen who would become China’s president was sent during the Cultural Revolution receive a constant stream of Communist pilgrims, come to pay homage to Xi Jinping.
Xi was ordered to Liangjiahe in 1969, when he was 15, as part of Mao Zedong’s “Up to the Mountain and Down to the Countryside Movement”, which saw educated city youth deployed to rural areas.
The urbane son of a Communist Party grandee, Xi spent seven years hauling grain and sleeping in cave homes on flea-bitten brick beds.


But he has said he “left his heart” in Liangjiahe, and credits the experience with his political formation long before he became the most powerful man in the world’s second-largest economy.
Chinese Communist Party expands Xi Jinping’s political power, anointing him ‘core’ leader
Now the dusty village in Shaanxi province has been transformed into a living shrine to Xi’s years of toil, with vintage Mao posters, thermoses and kerosene lamps giving the cave homes he occupied an authentic feel.
Between 1,000 and 7,000 tourists visited every day, state media reported, riding in on a highway opened this year, and Xi himself blessed the location with a return journey last year.
In the newly paved main street, Guo Moxi, who worked the fields with Xi, said that since Xi was appointed party general secretary four years ago, everyone’s lives in Liangjiahe had seen “a big change”.
Four years Xi’s junior, Guo recalls a gentle person of “broad understanding” who was “very compassionate” towards ordinary people.
“He was prepared to spend his life in Liangjiahe. He suffered a lot of hardship and wanted to change the face of this place.”


In a sleek museum affiliated with an elite Communist Party college in nearby Yanan, young guides in elegant jackets narrate to elderly visitors the “Four Hardships” Xi suffered – flea bites, bad food, hard labour and assimilating into the peasantry.
Yang Xianglin, a former teacher whose cave home is decked with photos of Xi and his wife, painted a picture of an almost legendary figure, reading books during breaks from hard labour, with a fierce spirit “so one could see he was no common man”.
Flea bites and wading in sewage: Xi Jinping's account of working among peasants goes viral
His descent from privileged childhood to the countryside, and later return to triumph after trials and suffering, contained “fairy tale elements” that deepened his common appeal, said Warren Sun of Australia’s Monash University.
“The current promotion of Liangjiahe as a new ‘sacred site’ is apparently part of an effort to bolster Xi’s image as a prince of the people,” Sun said.
Such myth-making marked a striking difference between Xi and his predecessor Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), said Victor Shih of the University of California San Diego.
“Hu tried to downplay his personal history to avoid any appearance of a personality cult,” Shih said. “We have not seen such effort in the Xi administration.”


Fields of cabbage still line the road through Liangjiahe, but most residents now spend their days catering to tourists. Some rent out caves or courtyard homes, others drive shuttle buses or have opened shops selling Liangjiahe-branded hot sauce.
Average yearly incomes have nearly doubled from 7,900 yuan in 2012 to more than 15,000 yuan (HK$17,400) last year, according to the town’s museum.
A county development plan calls for new restaurants and cave inns to give up to 300 overnight guests a taste of Xi’s life, with hard brick beds and earth stoves to “strictly protect the Liangjiahe brand image”.
“When he was young, he was incredible,” said a retired teacher named Wang, describing his visit to Liangjiahe as “a form of spiritual self-education”.
Xi Jinping makes rare visit to Yanan, China's revolutionary base where he lived as young man
The explosive growth of Communist-related tourism in China over recent years has been fuelled in part by Xi’s charisma, and by lingering nostalgia for the simpler era of Mao Zedong (毛澤東).
“Red Tourism has a kind of need for leader worship, for hero worship, for worshipping miracles,” said He Jianmin, head of tourism management at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.
But a middle-aged tourist in Liangjiahe surnamed Li sounded a note of dissent. He said it was “wrong” to build the village into a place of adulation for Xi.
“It’s a bad Chinese habit,” he said.
“Because a leader lived here, they turn it into an education base, they twist the experience and turn it into a kind of worship.”
Whether Xi was a good leader, he said, “time will have to judge”.


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Xi Jinping

Chinese village where Xi Jinping lived as a teen hosts thousands of Communist pilgrims each day

Visitors pose for photos in front of an image of President Xi Jinping at a museum in the village where Xi lived as a youth, in Liangjiahe, Shaanxi province. Photo: AFP

This picture taken on October 22, 2016 shows a man taking photos in a cave home where China's President Xi Jinping lived as a youth, as a photo of Xi as a youth (2nd L) hangs on the wall behind him, in Liangjiahe, in China's Shaanxi province. Three caves in a remote Chinese village where Xi Jinping was sent during the Cultural Revolution receive a constant stream of Communist pilgrims, come to pay homage four years after he came to power. / AFP PHOTO / STR / China OUT / TO GO WITH AFP STORY: China-politics-social-tourism-Xi, FOCUS by Benjamin CARLSON

This picture taken on October 22, 2016 shows people looking at photos of Chinese President Xi Jinping at a cave home where Xi lived as a youth, in Liangjiahe, in China's Shaanxi province. Three caves in a remote Chinese village where Xi Jinping was sent during the Cultural Revolution receive a constant stream of Communist pilgrims, come to pay homage four years after he came to power. / AFP PHOTO / STR / China OUT / TO GO WITH AFP STORY: China-politics-social-tourism-Xi, FOCUS by Benjamin CARLSON

This picture taken on October 22, 2016 shows visitors standing outside a cave home where China's President Xi Jinping lived as a youth, in Liangjiahe, in China's Shaanxi province. Three caves in a remote Chinese village where Xi Jinping was sent during the Cultural Revolution receive a constant stream of Communist pilgrims, come to pay homage four years after he came to power. / AFP PHOTO / STR / China OUT / TO GO WITH AFP STORY: China-politics-social-tourism-Xi, FOCUS by Benjamin CARLSON

This picture taken on October 22, 2016 shows people visiting a cave home where China's President Xi Jinping lived as a youth, in Liangjiahe, in China's Shaanxi province. Three caves in a remote Chinese village where Xi Jinping was sent during the Cultural Revolution receive a constant stream of Communist pilgrims, come to pay homage four years after he came to power. / AFP PHOTO / STR / China OUT / TO GO WITH AFP STORY: China-politics-social-tourism-Xi, FOCUS by Benjamin CARLSON

This picture taken on October 22, 2016 shows a mural extolling hard struggle outside a cave home where China's President Xi Jinping lived as a youth, in Liangjiahe, in China's Shaanxi province. Three caves in a remote Chinese village where Xi Jinping was sent during the Cultural Revolution receive a constant stream of Communist pilgrims, come to pay homage four years after he came to power. / AFP PHOTO / STR / China OUT / TO GO WITH AFP STORY: China-politics-social-tourism-Xi, FOCUS by Benjamin CARLSON

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Xi, then 15, was sent to Liangjiahe where he spent seven years hauling grain and sleeping in a cave home
