This Village In China Is Only Accessible Via A Zip Line
Imagine crossing a zip-line cable car in a remote area of China. Under your feet is a literal space of over five hundred feet before the ground shows up and from that cable car you can hardly see the trees, let alone other things. Seems like a scene or dare directly out of a dare show on television, well definitely not an ordinary everyday ride. Yet for an entire village, this is the only possible communication route.Imagine that!
Instead of the long and complicated route that takes the villagers days to cover, the village is connected to the other part of China through a mid-air suspended zip line car. Even students and children have to use this daily to reach their schools and educational institutes.
Naturally with such a dangerous and risky travel mode, the repair and maintenance of the zip line is also done regularly. For the last fifteen years, a local resident, Zhang Xinjian has been the sole person responsible for the maintenance of the line and in many ways responsible for the communication of the villagers with the outside world.He is also responsible for the lives of many of the villagers including students and children who use this cable car for travelling daily to and from school. The length of the zip line is over one kilometre.
Zhang Xinjian says that the reason that he was selected for the job of maintaining the cable car was basically that nobody else was willing to take this job. The entire village refused to take up such a challenging and dangerous job. According to Zhang Xinjian, since his father was the village chief and he asked him to do the job, he had to take up this job. Ever since, he has been carefully maintaining the cable car and zip-line.
The name of this exceptionally remote village is Kushan and it is located in the mountainous area of central China in the province Hubei.
Not only people but goods and items of daily use are also transported along this wire via the cable car and all these items are essential to keep the remote village connected to the world.The entire area is full of mountains and gorges and is indeed a very beautiful sight. The view from the cable car is majestic while being bone chilling scary as well.
This way of life has rather become a norm for the villagers.Comparing this the commuting issues of first world cities, it seems to be utterly minute.Fortunately, the local government of that area has recently taken notice of the hardships and dangers being faced by the villagers and has thus started taking steps to improve this very precarious predicament since the villagers are stuck between choosing a dangerous zip line ride or travelling for days to reach any other part of China.A road is now under construction and imagining Zhang Xinjiang being sad and disappointed at the loss of his job is pretty hard to imagine as he will not have to risk his life every now and then to maintain the zip line.
