AS one of the co-ordinators of the Shenzhen-Kashgar Pomegranate Seed Program, young Kashgar woman Kadierya Kabulizi dressed herself up and went out early this weekend in preparation for bringing a group of tourists to explore old town Kashgar. In a bronzeware workshop which has been passed down by six generations in the old town, the tourists learned from the craftsman how their personalized bronze bracelets are made. According to the itinerary, the tourists experienced the unique craft of hand-making Xinjiang earthenware, wood carvings and musical instruments. The Shenzhen-Kashgar Pomegranate Seed Program, initiated in 2017, is a tourism program that allows tourists to choose different routes for experiencing intangible cultural heritage handicrafts and learning manual skills based on their interest. “I have gone to Xinjiang four times but this is my first time joining this kind of experience tour. It’s really interesting,” commented Wu Junhao from Singapore, adding that he would recommend it to his friends. The program, initiated by the Kashgar Tourism Bureau and implemented by Shenzhen’s cugtrip.com and Kashgar Old Town’s tourist attraction administration commission, enters its second year now and covers seven traditional techniques with 27 experience-based workshops. According to Wang Zhen, one of the initiators of the program, on the one hand, the goal of the program is to introduce new tourism concepts to local merchants in order to help them increase income; on the other hand, it allows tourists to learn about old town Kashgar in a more engaging way. Since the inception of the program in June 2017, the Kashgar Headquarters of Shenzhen-Xinjiang Pairing-Assistance and Kashgar Tourism Bureau have provided strong support for the program. With the development of rural tourism in Kashgar, the Shenzhen-Kashgar Pomegranate Seed Program plans to extend its services into extremely poverty-stricken villages with rich tourist resources to develop multi-dimensional experience-based tourism products. (Chen Xiaochun) | 