Lives of my natives have been better off day by day. This year, the Bulang people, as a whole, will be lifted out of poverty," said Zhang Min, a political adviser from Bulang ethnic group when accepting an interview during this year’s national “Two Sessions”.

Zhang Min was born in Bulangshan Township, south Yunnan province’s Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture. She recalled that when she was a child, few people in her village were willing to communicate with outsiders. They lived in thatched houses and didn’t know how to raise livestock. So they depended on haunting for meat.

After living in the village for a decade, Zhang Min and her family moved to the county seat 80 kilometers away. "At that time, there was no road to the outside world and it took us a whole day to walk to the county seat," she said.

With the supporting policies from central government, Xishuangbanna prefecture has taken a series of measures, including export of labor, house construction, developing featured industries, improving infrastructure and protecting ecological environment to lay solid foundation for alleviating poverty in Bulangshan Township.

Nowadays, a road has been built and hardened to the county seat, it only takes the villagers less than one hour to get to the county town by cars or buses. Moreover, their incomes increases and the thatched houses have been replaced by brick ones. They focus more on the education of their offspring.

Zhang said that being lifted out of poverty is not the end, but it is a new start actually. She hopes that her natives can stay above the poverty line permanently while continuously raising their educational standards and fighting for a brighter future.