重口味

A |     （ECNS） -- A 4,285-meter canal carved into a karst cliff in southwest China’s Chongqing has become a social media sensation, attracting photographers and hikers to Qianjin village in Wulong district.    Nearly 1,000 meters of the canal runs flush against a precipice hundreds of meters high, with spring water still trickling through its channels.    Villagers began hacking the waterway out of solid rock in 1999 using chisels and hammers, completing it three years later to bring water and electricity to mountain communities.        From lifeline to hiking destination    As modern irrigation improved, the canal’s role faded, but its dramatic setting has turned it into a magnet for outdoor enthusiasts.      "The trickling sound of spring water runs on one side and a green canyon on the other. It was well worth the trip," said Liu Zhengchun, a hiking enthusiast from Chongqing, who came with friends after watching videos shared by bloggers on social media.    He noted that the narrowest section of the canal is barely wide enough for one person to pass by bending forward, and that the chisel marks left by the builders remain clearly visible on the rock face.    A waterfall near a hydropower station along the route has also become a highlight.    Builder-turned-guardian    Builder Li Wufeng, now in his 60s, continues to maintain the canal and volunteers as a safety monitor as visitor numbers grow.     "In the past, I was basically the only person walking on the canal," Li said. "Now more and more young people come to explore, hike and take photos. On peak days, I can run into more than 200 visitors."    Local government eyes tourism development    As the site's popularity grows, authorities are paying increasing attention to outdoor safety and ecological protection. Local officials are planning a loop-shaped scenic area that integrates sightseeing, experiential activities and leisure, with supporting facilities including a parking structure, a visitor center, cliffside plank roads and a glass observation deck.    The goal is to give the cliffside canal, once a hard-won lifeline for a mountain village, a renewed purpose in the era of cultural tourism.                    。    

    A South Korean senior citizen (right), joining a photography group, tours and takes photos at Zhangjiajie National Forest Park in Central China's Hunan Province, on January 5, 2025. Photo: VCG
Flights between China and South Korea remained at a high level in the past two weeks, supported by network expansion and rising demand, industry data showed on Monday.
Between July 27 and August 9, a total of 5,142 passenger flights were operated on China-South Korea routes, maintaining a high level of overall supply, industry data provider VariFlight told the Global Times on Monday. 
Compared with the previous period from July 13 to July 26, when there were 5,145 flights, the number of operated flights decreased by just three, remaining essentially flat. 
Compared with the same period in 2025, the number of flights grew by 10.7 percent. Flight operations during this period grew by 12 percent compared with the same period in 2019, indicating that current passenger flight volumes on China-South Korea routes have significantly surpassed pre-pandemic levels, VariFlight said. 
The rising demand is also supported by more airlines and airports expanding their networks. 
For example, Spring Airlines said that its current network includes four South Korean destinations: Jeju, Busan, Cheongju, and Seoul. 
Following the introduction of the visa-free policy for South Korean passport holders, the carrier has witnessed a notable uptick in weekend trips to Shanghai, with Friday arrivals seeing a particularly strong uptrend. On the Busan-Shanghai route, Korean travelers have made up as much as 80 percent of passenger loads on Friday and Sunday flights during peak travel windows, Spring Airlines told the Global Times on Monday. 
Jeju Air saw its passenger traffic increase by nearly 40 percent year-on-year during the first seven months of this year on routes between the two countries, the Yonhap News Agency reported on Monday. 
From January to July, seat capacity on Jeju Air's South Korea-China routes grew by 26.8 percent year-on-year to 494,300 seats, while passenger traffic rose by 37.4 percent year-on-year to 427,300 travelers, and the load factor climbed 6.6 percentage points to 86.4 percent.
Eastar Jet, a South Korean low-cost carrier, announced on Friday that it had launched a new route between Incheon and Hohhot with two flights per week, Yonhap reported. 
The expansion of flight routes between China and South Korea is a reflection of both warming bilateral relations and rising demand in tourism, business, investment, and people-to-people exchanges, Da Zhigang, a researcher at the Heilongjiang Provincial Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Northeast Asian Studies, told the Global Times.
He said that visa-free policies and travel facilitation measures, with tourism acting as a bridge for broader exchanges and trade, have paved the way for this expansion.
Data from Qunar.com showed that South Korea ranked first in the inbound source market rankings for the first half of 2026, followed by Thailand, Singapore, and Vietnam.
While South Korea is already China's largest source of foreign tourists, even more of its nationals have been making trips to their western neighbor in recent months. About 1.7 million South Koreans visited China in the first half of this year, up 16 percent from the same period last year, scmp.com reported on Saturday, citing figures from South Korea's Ministry of Justice.
Yanji Chaoyangchuan International Airport expanded its South Korean route network to six destinations including Busan, Cheongju and Daegu with 668 monthly flights and a daily peak of 26 flights carrying 4,115 passenger trips in July. The airport ranked first in Northeast China for South Korean passenger traffic in July.
On May 16, Qingdao Airlines increased the frequency of its Qingdao-Seoul route, with flights operating three times per week. After this increase, average daily passenger flights from Qingdao to South Korea reached 18, of which 16 served Seoul on a daily basis.
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