Habits, beliefs and tacit knowledge in Qingkou village in China’s Rural Development

Confronting the rapid growth of the economy and the overwhelming influence of the urbanization on the rural areas in China, much study has seen the urbanisation in China as a process that ideas and attitudes from the cities spread to the rural areas that led to the narrowing of the gap between urban and rural areas.

This study intends to investigate the transformation of the Qingkou village in Yunnan from 2001 when the development plan was carried out to build the village as a “Eco-tourism Hani culture village”. It explores how the traditional local houses and built environments have been perceived and constructed in the process of the development. In addition to the analysis of the villagers’ houses, the village layout, private and public spaces that have been used by different groups in the village, the paper also discusses how the villagers adapted to the external influence and tried to maintain the village unit as a self-contained entity. The study is aiming to explore whether there are some substantial differences between the habits, beliefs, and tacit knowledge in Qingkou village and those in more urbanized areas in Yunnan.