Heroes of the big screen

No obstacle too great

Traffic used to be the biggest headache, as the projectionists had to trek over mountains to reach the remote villages. The situation improved greatly when Xiong bought a car in 2020, for both safety and convenience.

Before that, she rode a motorcycle along the rough mountain paths, carrying her own clothing and other articles of daily use. At the same time, she put the equipment, including a projector and a large screen, on a bus and fetched it at the final stop in Baoxia.

The town is about 70 kilometers from her home, over 40 minutes by car. However, before the construction of the highway, it would take over two hours by bus, and there were only a few scheduled buses, meaning that she often had to wait for a long time.

As always, she has to visit all villages of the town within a year, and will stay in a village for about three days before moving on to the next, with her luggage and the projection equipment.

"It's physically demanding to transport the heavy equipment between villages, but as the economic condition of these rural areas has greatly improved in recent years, the village head will often send a car to carry the equipment to the town," she says. Before that, she had to pay a taxi service or seek help from villagers.

Back in 2012, when she went to one remote village, the equipment was transported up the rough, winding hillside track on the back of a mule — a crucial means of transportation for those who lived on the top of the mountain.

"After some heavy rainfall, a large rock blocked the way. The villagers were all elderly people, who were very grateful that I overcame the obstacles and made it to the village to show movies for them," she says.

Six years later, when she returned to the village, she was amazed to find a cement road had been laid. The villagers had been relocated to more convenient homes, and many young people had become comfortably well-off through hard work in the cities.