A Spring Festival Coming with A New Life
- A Story Behind the Picture

For every Chinese, the Spring Festival was a ever symbol of joy and warmth. It is not only the most fresh and special day of a year, but also embodied with five thousand years of the ever lasting Chinese culture.

Right after 2003 Spring Festival, this picture was taken by Heifer China 's project partners in Shangri-la when they took a long and tough journey to Xiaozhongdian, a Tibetan village 25 kilometers from the town, for preliminary project research.

Another Spring Festival was coming. As usual, the Gerong's family, one of the project families in Qixuegu Village, planted 7 pine trees, which were just cut from the mountain, in front of the gate, the four corners and the middle of the room of the house, to show welcome to the coming new year. According to the elderly, this was a old tradition from the ancestors of Xiaozhongdian – planting lucky trees in front of the house would bring happiness and luck to the family in the next year.

The two lucky trees in front of the house gate were the most important of the all seven trees—they had to be three to eight years old, healthy, straight and with just right size and a balanced shape. Due to these strict requirements for a lucky tree, it's normal for the villagers to cut down seven or eight trees as back up candidates. This tradition caused waste and obstacles to the protection of forest. Behind the beautiful wishes embodies in the lucky tress was suffering from drought and sand storms.

The coming of Heifer filled the villagers' hearts with warmth. The spring of 2003, when Heifer arrived at this poor village, the staff was faced with the dilemma: how to preserve the local tradition without damages to the environment? The staff walked into houses to communicate with villagers and illustrate techniques. Their fresh ideas and sincerity touched the villagers and made them aware of the importance of forests and grasslands in preventing chill wind and holding soil. Having accepted the message, villagers decided that they would no longer cut trees from the mountains but use a bunch of pine boughs instead. The Spring Festival of 2004, our 10 project families did not cut trees but used boughs; the Spring Festival of 2005, much less villagers used trees… When it came to 2006, almost all the villagers used pine boughs as substitute. What's more, they took the responsibility of planting tress and grass. 43 mou grass and 364 trees were planted by 18 project families. “Protecting forests, promoting environmental conservation, building harmonious life”, we believe that with jointed efforts, our Tibetan villages will be green and prosperous in the near future.

The joy and peace is still like before and the only difference is that “lucky trees” do not dry and die as the Spring Festival passing away. Instead, they will stand on their own earth in the warmth of spring, protecting the Tibetan people and the Qixuegu Village , witnessing their happiness, years and years.

(By Huang Changgang)