Solid support

At the county seat, under government subsidy plans for the new apartments, each Atuleer villager pays about 3,000 yuan for 25 square meters, with the payment capped at 10,000 yuan for the largest 100-sq-m unit housing a family of four members or more. Each family also receives nearly 2,000 yuan to help purchase household items. The government support is significant considering housing prices in the county that can average about 4,000 yuan per square meter for similar property, residents said.

Villager Mose Ziha said the recent years' influx of tourists, who bought his walnuts, olive oil and other produce, helped to more than double his annual income to about 10,000 yuan. Just his walnut yield rose twofold to about 15 yuan a kilogram after riding on the increase in tourists.

Like other relocated Atuleer villagers, he maintains his small plot of land in the mountains even as he looks for work in urban areas to boost his income after moving from a cliffside adobe hut to his 50-sq-m one-bedroom apartment, which he shares with his brother. Mose Ziha livestreams songs and other performances for social media fans – many of them buy his crops – with at least 5,000 of them on major video-sharing site Douyin.

Click here to watch the video of "cliff village"

Api Lari, deputy Party secretary of the new Yiwu community housing more than 2,700 resettled villagers like Mose Ziha, said site amenities include a canteen, residents' cultural activities center, children's learning areas and even a retail strip offering traditional ethnic products and artwork like elaborate Yi embroidery to further supplement residents' incomes.

"They are not simply transitioning from adobe to concrete; these people are also getting support to develop their lifestyles and mindsets," Api said.

Mose Wuha, a resettled Atuleer villager in the nearby Nanping new housing area, moved to his new 100-sq-m, three-bedroom apartment at the top floor of a five-story block in mid-May. Mose Wuha's 19-year-old son, the eldest of his four children, lives with him while they wait for the rest of the family who will move from the cliffside village in the coming months.

Mose Wuha, 48, said he ran an unprecedented stall at the peak of Atuleer selling refreshments to tourists after they were drawn to the area when the handrailed metal ladder was set up. That helped him make up to 2,000 yuan a month, a substantial upgrade from the subsistence farming he previously practiced. He is planning to operate a shop in his new community to continue selling local items, including his own Atuleer crops.

"This is a great change for us. We can keep our links with Atuleer and access better social benefits in the county seat like healthcare," Mose Wuha said. "My children are already getting opportunities I never had. My youngest daughter, she is 7, can actually speak better Mandarin than me. She is enjoying school in Atuleer and we are all looking forward to living together again once the move is completed."