A memorial archway stands at the gate of the almost deserted scenic area in the town of Liangzhu, Henan. Photo: IC

The town of Liangzhu, in Runan county, Henan Province, is named after a legendary couple, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, from the Western Jin Dynasty (265-316), who, as the tale goes, faced a tragic separation before joining one another in death and re-emerging as butterflies.

Whilst the tale of the Butterfly Lovers is known throughout China, more recent gossip focused on whether millions had been invested into a tourism project aimed at capitalizing on this famous tale, only to have the project grind to a halt when funds ran out.

An official surnamed Yao from the Liangzhu town government on Monday denied that there had been any significant investment into the project, saying that "it hasn't started yet."

He clarified that the government is indeed considering a tourism project featuring a story of the couple, but it has yet to be launched. The plan would involve 66 hectares being transformed into a scenic area with themed pavilions - though without massive private investment, the project looks beyond the reach of the local government.

Rumors such as this are often spread far and wide, partly due to the ballooning numbers of tourism projects launched by local governments around the country. Tourism is often seen as an easy asset to exploit, though the required investment doesn't always materialize.

Ambitious plans

In the 1990s, the government planted trees near the Liangzhu tomb and built a brick-wall nearby to protect the site.

The legend of Liangzhu was first listed as part of China's intangible cultural heritage in 2006. Since early spring this year, the government has been planning a tourism project in the area.

In 2011, a businessman from Guangdong Province donated 300,000 yuan ($47,175) toward the cost of building a memorial arch in the town. The same year, an investor from Shenzhen, Guangdong promised to invest 200 million yuan into a tourism project, but his plan was canceled because the company's board of directors didn't reach a consensus.

Since then, few have made investment inquiries, according to Yao.

"We are still waiting for investment into the project," Yao told the Global Times. "The project may need some 300 to 500 million yuan, while the total revenue of our county is only 3 million yuan. The local government can't put forward that kind of investment."

Yao said that if the project proved successful, it would boost the local economy and provide employment.

However, despite the fact that Liangzhu represents the origins of the tale, other locations, including Ningbo in Zhejiang Province, have already built Liangzhu theme parks.

"This kind of activity can be seen everywhere. Governments want to earn money through tourism, but many of them lack creativity," Zhang Shangzheng, a tourism professor with Anhui University, told the Global Times. "They over-exaggerate their projects without a scientific inquiry into their resources and markets. As a result, financial crises can easily occur."

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Financial burdens

Kaifeng, a second-tier city in Henan Province, has big plans but small budgets. Li Chao, an official with the publicity department of the CPC Kaifeng Committee, told the Global Times previously that they need 100 billion yuan for a project to reconstruct shanty towns in old urban areas.

A report in the Beijing-based China Business Journal (CBJ) said that the money was to be used in a 20-square-kilometer historical scenic area, in a four-year project which aims to recreate the appearance of Kaifeng when it was known as Bianjing, the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127).

In contrast to the massive sums required, the city's fiscal revenue is less than 5 billion yuan, the CBJ reported.

"The sum is too high for the people of Kaifeng," Zhou Binrui, 24, a graduate student at a university in Beijing who is also a resident in Kaifeng's old district, told the Global Times, adding that she did, however, enjoy some of the changes.

For Zhou Xueying, however, a history professor with Nanjing University in Jiangsu Province who has visited Kaifeng several times, the rebuilt buildings in Kaifeng can't compete with the real buildings of the Northern Song. "Lacking quality construction standards and materials, the buildings have no character," said Zhou. "They are rubbish."

"Historical buildings can't be duplicated and reconstructed. What we can do is try our best to preserve their original appearance," Zeng Yizhi, a member of the Chinese Commission with the International Council on Monuments and Sites, told the Global Times. "Some local officials like to play the cultural card, but their target is not culture, but money and political maneuvers," said Zeng.

Destroying cultural relics

More than 90 percent of the cultural relics featured in scenic spots around China have either been destroyed or degraded to certain degrees, due to natural wear and tear or people, Sun Keqin, a cultural relics protection expert with the China University of Geosciences, told the Global Times.

The Shijia Temple, which was built during the Northern Song Dynasty in Sixian county, Anhui Province, was listed in the historic relics of the county in 1981. In 2007, the Sixian Land and Resources Bureau auctioned 1.67 hectares of land including the temple and sold it for 11.5 million yuan, to make way for commercial buildings.

Though the local culture bureau and the State Administration of Cultural Heritage ordered the developers to stop construction a year later, the temple was demolished when the local government officials insisted that the temple could just be rebuilt in another place. The reconstruction has yet to commence.

In July 2009, archeology circles were delighted after 13 barns from the Song (960-1279) and Yuan (1279-1368) dynasties in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province were listed as being among the top 10 archeological discoveries in China. Five months later, the excitement turned into a nightmare when construction teams from a local developer came to the site and drove away archeological workers.

The third national cultural relic general survey in 2009 showed that 30,955 out of 776,215 registered cultural relics had disappeared, the People's Daily reported.

Many cultural relics were destroyed in large-scale demolition and construction projects, according to Sun.

"Some officials are too short-sighted. They rarely realize that protecting cultural relics is more important than GDP," Sun said. "Cultural relics are a wealth for us and future generations."

Sun said that the supervision measures designed to protect cultural relics are too loose, and punishments for destroying these relics are not severe enough. "Sometimes, the cost of destroying a cultural relic is paying a 500,000 yuan fine, which is only one set of apartments for a real estate developer," Sun said.

"The developer won't mind sacrificing a small amount of money to ensure the smooth progress of their big project," Sun said. "No one realizes that these destroyed cultural relics were priceless."