A man sails on a boat in Bama county, in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in September, 2006. Photo: CFP

Every morning, Cui Xuedong, a liver cancer patient and former general manager of a transport facilities company in Beijing, puts on his gloves, then gets on his hands and knees to go climbing along a mountain trail in Bapandun village in Bama, a remote and mountainous county in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

He's not alone when he does this. Thousands of other cancer patients are there alongside him, each hoping that somehow, the area itself has unique properties that can extend their lives.

Bama county has the highest proportion of centenarians of any place in China. It is this statistic that has drawn Cui and others like him.

Climbing isn't the only method they are using in an attempt to extend their lives. Tang Laoye, 67, a retiree from Shanghai who suffers from prostate cancer, now lives in Baimotun village in the county. He told the Global Times Tuesday he witnessed a civil servant from Liaoning Province drinking his own urine in March in an effort to persuade his wife, who suffers from ovarian cancer, to follow his lead.

Of course, medical experts frown on these baffling beliefs, but that hasn't stopped sick or elderly people from flocking to Bama county, or other locations around China with allegedly mystical properties.

"With a strong desire to live, patients try anything they believe might be useful for them," Cui said.

Booming with life

Bama has a population of 270,000 and was recognized by the International Natural Medicine Society as the "hometown of longevity" due to its centenarian cluster in 1991.

Bama now boasts 82 centenarians and 776 90-year-olds. The ratio of centenarians is 31.5 per 100,000, which is about four times the international standard of 7 per 100,000, according to Li Yi, the director of the publicity office with the Party committee of Bama county.

Since 2011, about 100,000 tourists have visited the area each year. Most of them were people who come from South China or Northeast China suffering from diseases . They are called "transients" who range from 30 to 70 years old and usually stay in rural areas in Bama for periods between a month and a year.

But Bama county is not unique.

By 2007, there were 50 counties and cities that claimed they were among these longevity towns, the Changsha Evening News reported.

A history of longevity

These "transients" are far from the first to try to seek longevity.

"Pursuing longevity was a favored pastime for many Chinese emperors," Zhou Xueying, a history professor with Nanjing University, told the Global Times.

In the Qin Dynasty (221BC-206BC), Emperor Qin Shihuang was said to have sent 3,000 female and male virgins to certain islands in the ocean where "gods" were believed to live, in order to track down medicine that would help keep him young forever. But the people he sent to find the medicine never returned.

In a similar folly, Han Wudi, one of the emperors of the Western Han Dynasty (206BC-AD25), ordered alchemists to make him longevity medicine. Han died at 69 years of age, but his pursuit lives on in modern China.

"These strange attempts by emperors to pursue longevity have had a deep influence on the grass roots who think emperors set an example for them," Zhou said. "In ancient times, without developed technology, it was understandable that people believed these silly methods. But in modern times, people should use science to guide their lives."

"There are special characteristics of Chinese people regarding the pursuit of longevity, and some are even obsessed with it," Fang Zhouzi, a famous commentator and science cop, told the Global Times Wednesday. "Longevity is a pursuit of people all over the world. But in China, people have blind faith in some strange healthcare methods and there are many people out there who want to cheat others, and it's often easy because the related markets are often in a mess because of a lack of government supervision."

Meanwhile, doctors are lukewarm on the life-extending properties of these longevity towns.

"Environmental therapy is helpful for medical treatment, but it can't replace formal treatment in hospital," Jiang Liangduo, a senior expert with the Dongzhimen Hospital Affiliated to the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, told the Global Times on Wednesday. "If it could cure all diseases, it wouldn't be necessary for us to have hospitals."

In reality, the secret of the Bama county residents' longevity isn't much of a secret, according to Li.

Bama's water contains more minerals, the air quality is healthy and the soil includes lots of selenium, an element scientists say is good for prolonging life - a set of factors that are not common across China's 22 provinces, Li said. "Besides the natural environment, Bama's residents live a natural life."

Cashing in on hope

The hopes of these people provide some with an opportunity to make a fast buck. In one example, to get more fresh air, some of the "transients" pay 300 yuan ($49) a month and queue up just to breathe oxygen in a cave with access to the Panyang River.

In another example, when leaving Bama in June, Tang bought one ton of water from the local area, for him to drink over the course of six months.

Tourism also fills local coffers. Last year, about 2.18 million domestic and overseas tourists visited Bama, up 23 percent compared with 2011. Income from tourism stands at 1.98 billion yuan ($32.33 million), up 47.6 percent compared with 2011, according to Li.

Zhang Shangzheng, a tourism professor with Anhui University, told the Global Times on Tuesday that many tourism projects he had inspected made use of the brand "longevity village."

"The natural environment is good. But they exaggerate environmental factors," Zhang said. "To pursue profit, local authorities even falsify people's ages. I found that quite a few people who are 80 years old are recorded as 100 years old."

"If a 'longevity village' has the magical effects they claim, it should be able to be replicated, which follows strict scientific process. But most of them can't be copied. This makes these villages seem more mysterious," Zhang said.

"These magical effects always combine with traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and some 'doctors' give various strange prescriptions beyond imagination," Zhang said. "Usually, they don't work at all. But patients believe them just because want to believe in a magic prescription."