A woman walks past the bust of the Peking Man at the Peking Man park on the outskirts of Beijing. But its museum is shut because of a leaky roof. Weeds choke the excavation site. Only one sign tells the rare visitor what he s looking at. Fourteen years after it was proclaimed a U.N. World Heritage Site, the park isn t on most tours.
Visitors shun it because it has so little to offer.
We can t afford to renovate the areas surrounding the relics, said Zhang Shuangquan, assistant curator at the site s museum. The situation here has become a vicious circle. Visitor numbers have dwindled since 1986, when 160,000 saw the site. Last year, only a quarter that many came. Money is so tight that the center has paid its 13 employees only two-thirds of their monthly wages for the last eight years, Mr. Zhang said.