Han Bokou, a famous scienic spot on Lushan Mountain.

By Quan Xiaoshu and Shen Yang, China Features

Running a small restaurant on Mount Lushan, Yu Hongxing has found few traces of its political past, when Mao Zedong hosted Party meetings on the mountaintop, but with the Chinese government attempting to return the area to its former glory, small businesses and locals are facing big changes to their lifestyles.

Located in east China's Jiangxi Province, Lushan has long been known for its mild climate, wooded hills and glistening waters. Different from other mountain reserves, a small town of 120,000 people sits on top of the mountain with most of the residents relying on tourism for their livelihood.

"People come to Lushan just for a cool and comfortable vacation and not many are really clear about what happened here in the past," Yu explained.

In May last year government planners, determined to restore the mountain's environment and historic glory, bought 110 shuttle buses to transport tourists over two sightseeing routes. No private cabs, tour buses, outside automobiles or trucks from the vegetable market are allowed to run up or down the mountain during the daytime.

The new traffic system has made Yu's catering business more costly, he must get up before dawn and rent a car on the mountain to carry meat and vegetables back before 7am.

When restaurant numbers are down, Yu offers his services as a tour guide for 50 yuan ($7.40) a day. He also has a deal with the cableway company on the mountain. For each person he can coax into riding a cable car, he gets a commission of 2-4 yuan ($0.59).

"I can tell some of the tourists don't like us. But it's getting more difficult to make money now, so we have to try more ways, just like businessmen in other scenic areas," Yu said.

Cui Feng, from the Lushan Administrative Bureau, has been an advocate for the low-emission sightseeing buses for over 10 years. However, many locals worry that the shuttle buses, running in five to 10 minute intervals, leave too little shopping time for tourists and will dampen the local economy.

"People have rested too much upon the mountain's past fame," Cui said. "They have given too little thought about how to protect the mountain and how to develop its tourism economy in an environmental way."

"It's normal to have some complaints from souvenir stores and travel agencies at the beginning," he added, "but the project will benefit the mountain and the tourists in the long term, with better traffic management, fewer automobiles and clean air."

"Lushan was developed as a summer resort much earlier than other mountains," Cui explained. "Lushan has good roads, but increasingly cars have grown to be a big threat to the mountain's beauty and quietness."

At the end of the 19th century, many foreigners escaping the summer heat fl ed to Lushan. Edward Selby Little, an English missionary, was the fi rst to arrive. He rented a large area of land on the mountain in 1895, where he developed and sold summer villas.

The famous Meilu Villa

Little named the area Kuling, implying "cooling," which later became the current Guling town.

The 683 Western-style villas left by Little were once Lushan's most precious attractions. Among them, the most famous is Meilu Villa, which once housed both Mao Zedong, former leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and Chiang Kai-shek, former leader of the Kuomintang.

Chiang Kai-shek and his wife Soong Mei-ling spent many summers on Lushan in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1949 the villas became State property. Mao Zedong hosted three plenary meetings of the CPC Central Committee on the mountain, known as the Lushan Meetings, from 1959-1970.

"No mountain other than Lushan had so many nice villas to accommodate more than 1,000 CPC Central Committee members, nor could they compare traffic and living facilities with Lushan," explained Cui Xiaoyi, deputy director of the Lushan Administrative Bureau's publicity department. "It's natural that Lushan was picked to be the country's top meeting place in the summer."

Except for Meilu Villa and a few other historic homes, most are now occupied. "A villa of less than 300 square meters is usually home to seven or eight families. Some villas even have temporary  kitchens and bathrooms built alongside them," said Cui Xiaoyi.

To ease environmental impact, the bureau is now planning to relocate some Guling residents to a new town at the foot of the mountain for a couple of years.

Cui said that 1,000 apartments, a school, a tourism service center and a re-employment center are currently under construction with plans to expand to 4,000-5,000 new apartments.

Those living near water, in scenic areas and in old villas will be among the first to move out due to the urgent need for preservation. "offcials and cadres will take the lead in moving," Cui added.

Li Zhen, who manages six villas in Lushan's east valley, thinks the relocation of inhabitants will be helpful.

Li first came to Lushan in 2002. He was shocked to see that the old thendilapidated villas, were being used as residences, guest houses and dining halls. In 2003, he rented six villas, one of them formerly inhabited by Nobel Prize laureate Pearl S. Buck and began to develop them into a scenic attraction based on the important history of the area. Li named his project "Stories of Old Villas."

Tourism in Lushan became hugely popular after the 1980 hit fi lm Romance on Lushan. The movie tells the story of a daughter of a retired Kuomintang general who returns from the US to revisit the mountain and falls in love with the son of a CPC general. The film attracted millions of people to the mountain.

"There were no hotels then, so people swarmed into villas, classrooms and theaters. But there was still not enough indoor space, so many had to sleep on the road," Yin Yinyuan, a retired local commerce offcial, recalled.

"Schools started to charge visitor accommodation fees and the mountain began to sell admission tickets, improving the tourism economy," Yin said. "It had the most visitors and built the first and best three-star hotel in the province."

However, little progress has been made since the mid 1990s.

"The relocation plan, part of our long-term development plan for Lushan, will ease the growing pollution problems caused by residents and tourists and make the mountain a more comfortable place for vacations," Cui Xiaoyi said.

Not sure whether he himself will be included in the relocation, restaurateur Yu Hongxing is not opposed to the move. He has already bought an apartment in Jiujiang city, although it is hard for him to think about giving up his peaceful life on the mountain.