Red tourism reinforces Yan'an's place in history

Like her counterparts, she often sings Red songs and local folk songs and performs yangge, a popular rural folk dance, to liven things up.

"For visitors, the cave dwellings in Yan'an's revolutionary sites all look much the same, so I tell them historical stories to showcase the differences between caves," the 37-year-old veteran guide said.

She has her own methods of drawing the tourists' attention to Yangjialing's history: for Party members, she focuses on the CPC's theories; for ordinary tourists and students, she explains the history in simple terms and tells stories.

According to Qian, visitors are interested in a stone desk where Chairman Mao Zedong famously told Anna Louise Strong, a journalist from the United States, that "all reactionaries are paper tigers". She said tourists also like to visit a small patch of land where Mao grew vegetables. The land is still in use and the visitors can learn to identify different crops.

"As a guide at a revolutionary site, I realize that I shoulder a responsibility to spread the true history and revolutionary spirit of the older generation. I read extensively about the CPC's history for professional self-development," she said. "I was born and raised in Yan'an. I love my hometown and I love working here."

Her older brother is a security guard at Wangjiaping, another revolutionary site in the city. As a teenager, Qian often visited the site and gained the impression that "the tour guides were all good-looking and talented".

When she was recruited in 2006, she was the only undergraduate in Yangjialing. Now she's part of the core team and has provided guided tours for some leaders of foreign countries.