Nevada's golden past charms Chinese tourists

China's most romantic couple is learning how to pan for gold in Virginia City.

The Nevada Commission on Tourism is also seeking gold - in China - and it's counting on the couple, who won a bridal magazine contest, and a small group of Chinese media to bring it to Nevada.

The commission is hoping for more than a few specks of gold from the millions of tourists China could send its way. All Nevada has to do is attract them. And this tour is just one strike in the mother lode - it's an effort tourism officials have diligently tapped for more than two years, despite language, cultural and political divisions.

In cooperation with Asiana Airlines and Nevada hotels, the tourism commission sponsors about five Chinese media tours a year. Tourism officials say the effort pays off in the amount of type and photo spreads they get in Chinese publications.

Nevada is one of the few states that has a tourism office in Beijing and the official stamp of approval from the government. Las Vegas is a top destination, mostly because of its allure as a destination to gamble, which prohibited in mainland China.

Northern Nevada isn't getting much of the $1 billion Chinese visitors spent in the United States in 2001, but state officials want to change that.

That's where Virginia City, Tahoe, Carson City and Reno come in to play. At nearly every stop, the area's historic Chinese contribution is mentioned. While aboard the creaky Virginia & Truckee Railroad, state historian Ron James says the Chinese built the railroad, before it was torn up and rebuilt. James' narration is interrupted by the Chinese translation from tourism commission specialist Limin Liu. While panning for gold, the shop proprietor says the miners learned that mining practice from Chinese immigrants.

Xia Yan and Yang Shuangyan, the couple from Beijing, started their whirlwind tour of Nevada Monday morning with a wedding shoot at the Ridge Tahoe. The couple, who grew up together and married last year, were selected by readers of China's Modern Bride magazine because they seemed so perfectly paired, said Jessie Zheng, an editor for Modern Bride.

He's a 28-year-old pilot for Air China. She's 26-year-old marketing specialist for an advertising agency. While touring through a chilly mine in historic Virginia City, they hug each other for warmth. They happily pose in front of a scenic vista. Shuangyan squeals with delight, and Yan beams when she find a few flakes of gold in her pan of sand at a tourist stop along C Street.

The nine tourists, a minority of whom speak broken English and none without a camera, take pictures of the scenes many locals don't give a second glance, such as the hillside scarred by mining, a mine shaft in the distance, an old cemetery. They take a picture of a banjo player and a feathered American Indian headdress hanging in a shop .They wonder at things such as the letters painted on the side of the hill ("V" for Virginia City), which they don't do in China, Yan says.

Getting here is a challenge, said Yan. A traveler must pass a difficult visa test, which often is a deterrent. A couple must budget $4,000 for the trip.

Not all Chinese can afford to come to America, says Wang Hong, the president of a TV station that reaches more than 300 million viewers.

"China's a large country. The population is so huge that still a lot, over a million people, can afford to come here," he says.

His Travel Channel show, "World Tour," will broadcast a two-hour feature on Nevada over four weekends in August. That show alone reaches 3 to 4 million people, he says.

Anything Western seems popular. Hong says these trips promote an exchange of views.

"What's happening here is more business. Tourism grows and understanding between two people improves, and that will lead to political improvement," he says.

The People's Republic of China is considered the world's fastest-growing economy, although ranked as "mostly unfree" by the 2005 Index of Economic Freedom, and often at odds with America foreign policy.

Yan and Shuangyan say they do not perceive the two countries as enemies. They say it's not political differences that keep Chinese from visiting America.

"After 9/11, security was tight," he says though a translator. "Because of security, many couldn't get a visa. It's not for political reasons."

What may keep the Chinese away is English. While underneath Virginia City, inside the Ponderosa Saloon mine, the tour guide tells a little mining joke and looks at Yan for a laugh.

"Sorry, don't understand," Yan says. It's a phrase he'll repeat often on his American journey.

• Contact reporter Becky Bosshart at bbosshart@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1212.

By the numbers

The People's Republic of China:

• Total population: 1.3 billion

• China's middle class: about 175-250 million

Top destinations for the Chinese:

• 1.52 million Chinese visited Europe in 2003.

• 241,000 Chinese visited North America in 2003. Of that number, 157,326 Chinese visited the United States.

• In 2005, 530,000 Chinese came to the United States, of which about 93 percent spent part of their trip in Nevada.

- Source: Nevada Commission on Tourism