Throughout dry and mountaineous northern, an estimated 40 million Chinese still live in caves or subterranean dwellings. For these people, there is nothing more natural and ordinary than to live in the dugouts: their homes are easy and cheap to construct, warm in and cool in, and shield them well away from the strong winds and harsh weather .. In the new fast-living, Chinese people anything modern from flash cars and mobile phones to digital cameras. But cave-dwelling is one thing that the people of Shaanxi province swear they never give up on their road to modernisation. Not only do caves save space by being cut into hill terraces, they also save arable land since they use non-fertile or hard-to-farm hillsides, and also reduce use of -'s hard-pressed energy supplies. "Modern living is often not eco-friendly and sacrifices people's health with harmful building materials and paints," says Wang. Western environmentalists are also keen on cave-dwelling, saying that the natural insulation of the earth makes for high energy efficiency and provides a perfect method for the creation of eco-friendly accomodation. In one earth-sheltered housing project monitored by the University of Bath in Britain, it was found that the underground design used only 25 percent of the energy that would be required by a standard house on the same site. Wang is confident that even though more rural Chinese people are migrating to cities, cave dwelling remain a much-loved tradition of habitation for years. "In the past, local officials' political achievement was measured by how people they manage to move out of the caves, but now have got to know the value and attraction of caves," he says. "The caves won't disappear, there are simply too advantages." Taxi driver Tian can attest to that. "When I retire, of course I'll go back to my home village and live in a cave, there is no question about that," he says. * * * * * Published on /05