Under the grand Aizhai Bridge, people participate in the Baishihui, a parade featuring groups of folk lion dancers, as part of the Chinese New Year celebrations at the resettlement site in Aizhai town of Jishou, Hunan province, on Feb 20.

Relocated residents enjoy a family reunion meal to celebrate the Chinese New Year at their new home in Aizhai on Feb 20.

A village official explains policies on drawing lots to determine villagers' new homesteads in Aizhai on Aug 23, 2024.

Residents of Dalong village cast their votes in electing grassroots officials on Jan 16, as village workers came to their new houses to collect their ballots.

Children play at their new homes in Aizhai town on Jan 23.

Residents start a fire to cook dinner beside the rubble of their old houses on May 5 last year.

Workers tear down an old wooden house in Jilong village of Aizhai on March 16 last year.

A year after moving into their new homes, nearly 5,000 relocated residents enjoyed a traditional yet fresh Chinese New Year this year in Aizhai town of Jishou, Hunan province.

Following the beginning of the Daxingzhai Reservoir project in 2023, a total of 4,904 people from 1,141 households, many of them from the Miao ethnic group, needed to relocate from their ancestral homes.

Back then, many of them still lived in wooden stilt houses in the deep mountains. Eighty-year-old Yang Yongshou, who had never left the mountains, jokingly lamented that he could only see a patch of sky "as big as his palm".

As the relocation began, they gradually bid farewell to their homes. They tore down the beams of old houses to build new furniture, knelt and burned incense to pay respects in front of their forefathers' graves, drank Miao wine and sang traditional songs before embarking on their lives outside the mountains.

Just before last year's Spring Festival, they began moving into their new houses in Aizhai town. With gray tiles and white walls, the houses stand neatly beneath the towering Aizhai Bridge — a 1,176-meter sweep of steel and cable some 355 meters above the floor of the Dehang Grand Canyon.

Yang's family gathered at his new home for the Chinese New Year with tables laden with Miao cured meat and sour fish soup. "Now I can see the bridge as soon as I step out," he said.

On March 3 this year, the relocated residents organized a long-table feast and celebrated the Lantern Festival following the Chinese New Year in their new homes.

The children's zigzag roads to school has become a trip on a school bus; seniors' daily farming work has turned into chatting and basking in the sun at their doors; and many young people, who used to leave town for better job prospects, have returned to work near their homes. A 5A-level scenic area, the nation's top tier, consisting of the bridge, the canyon and the nearby Shibadong village, draws tourists and has brought job opportunities.

The reservoir, set to guarantee water security for half a million residents in Jishou, is expected to be completed in the near future.