"Tuk, tuk, tuk, knock knock! Gotcha, gotcha, knock knock! Walking into the square in front of the visitor center of Dayang Ancient Town, Zezhou County, Jincheng City, it was crowded and lively. Many provincial-level intangible cultural heritage projects such as "Iron Flower", "Two Ghosts Pull Down", and Running Donkey are underway......
The explosion of "Black Myth: Wukong" has amazed the world with ancient buildings in Shanxi, and Dayang Ancient Town, which has the reputation of "Kyushu Needle Capital", "Three Jin and One Town" and "Living Fossil of China's Ancient Towns", has also ushered in a peak of passenger flow.
In recent years, Dayang Town has awakened the thousand-year-old courtyard through cultural stage, tourism and singing, created a new health care "IP" with multi-format integration, rejuvenated the new vitality of rural health care, and called Jincheng health care brand in the country.
▲A new health care place with multi-format integration
Seize the opportunity
Dayang staged "Metamorphosis"
With a history of more than 2,600 years, Dayang Town has not only given birth to splendid handicraft culture, official culture, song and dance culture and folk art, but also ranks first among ancient towns in the country with a total area of about 340,000 square meters of ancient buildings, with 157 ground monuments and cultural relics alone. Walking through the ancient town, the city is walled and fortified, the streets and alleys are vertical and horizontal, the official residences, the pavilions and the beams, the temples and ancestral nunnery abound, and the bricks, stones, grass and trees all exude a unique charm.
The core of rural revitalization is industrial revitalization, and the rural market is a new blue ocean for future development. In 2020, Jincheng City successfully held the "China · Shanxi (Jincheng) Health Care Industry Development Conference", and the Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government decided to build a high-quality "100 villages and 100 hospitals" to drive the overall upgrading of the city's health care industry. The Party Committee and Government of Dayang Town immediately seized this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and immediately organized and carried out a series of work such as combing, declaration, planning, and construction.
On the basis of not changing the regional style, around the main line of "vicissitudes of the ancient town, vitality of Dayang", the huge ancient buildings composed of city walls, streets and alleys, shops, temples, residences, etc., are retained, and at the same time new cultural and commercial vitality is injected, which not only maintains the original texture of the ancient town, shows the historical memory of Dayang Ancient Town, but also designs the rural ecological landscape layout, and creates a healthy homestay village with typical northern characteristics.
At the same time, it signed an agreement with Beijing Ligen Group and Beijing Boya Fangluo Cultural Tourism Group for the development of ancient town scenic spots, and introduced Zezhou Cultural Tourism Group and Shanxi Provincial Construction Investment to build homestays such as "Yanga Qingju" and "Zhuangyuan Fudi", and the "Yanga Qingju" operated by Jincheng Oriental Cultural Tourism Group was selected as a national first-class tourist homestay, seeking a new path for the protection and revitalization of traditional villages.
Now, a "brand-new" sun is just around the corner. The blue bricks and gray tiles are covered, the courtyard is simple and elegant, the innovative landscape sketches are integrated with the surrounding scenery, and there are all kinds of accommodation, bars, entertainment and play, which have attracted many tourists to come for vacation and health and enjoy the slow-paced rural life. The "living ancient town" is really on fire.
▲Ancient town weaving workshop
Culture sets the stage
Intangible cultural heritage tourism "on fire"
Walking in the secluded ancient alleys of Dayang Ancient Town, you can inadvertently meet cultural imprints. 28 bars, sewing machine, radio, horse lantern...... Each old object not only has historical charm, but also a nostalgic story.
In order to retain the memory of nostalgia, Dayang Town further excavated its cultural characteristics and built a number of scenic spots such as an open farming experience park, a characteristic homestay, a granary youth hostel, and a folk intangible cultural heritage experience hall, attracting a large number of tourists. In the Dayang Intangible Cultural Heritage Museum, intangible cultural heritage cultures such as Dayang steel needles, crucible iron smelting, Dayang noodles, and incense making are displayed one by one, and the detailed introduction allows visitors to appreciate the cultural charm at a deeper level. Among them, the intangible cultural heritage "Two Ghosts Falling" is deeply loved by tourists for its witty performances and witty actions. Its unique appearance of "two ghosts" is a metaphor for the disputes between "righteousness" and "profit", expressing the pursuit and yearning of the people of the ancient town for justice from the witty rhythm of the two ghosts, and extending the thick history and culture to this day.
According to the current situation of the tourism market and the functions of product formats, the scenic spot will deeply promote "intangible cultural heritage + tourism" to help the in-depth integration of culture and tourism. At present, 15 intangible cultural heritage items have landed in the scenic spot, providing tourists with woodworking craft experience, iron smelting and forging experience, dough plastic paper-cutting craft experience, Dayang noodle food experience, and folk performing arts programs such as iron flower and donkey running.
In July and August every year, the summer village "Village Evening" choreographed, directed and performed by local residents is held every Friday and Saturday in the Guanli Lane Square of the ancient town scenic spot, echoing with the carnival of light and heat "Iron Flower" program, and it is also a "white + black" ancient town play feast.
"Yang A Song Qi Dance" originated from the poem "Gong Hou Yin" by the writer Cao Zhi during the Three Kingdoms period, which means "the land of Yang A is good at performing outstanding dances". Dayang is not only a famous historical and cultural town in China, but also the hometown of Chinese folk culture and art. According to Yan Wenhong, director of the Dayang Town Cultural Station, since the launch of the "Yang A Song Dance" summer "Village Evening" performance in 2016, more than 40,000 people have participated in the performance, and the audience has reached millions of people.
Wang Xiang, the actor of "Pretty Old Lady in the Ancient Town", is 83 years old this year and is still active on the stage of the "Village Evening" in Dayang Summer. Lovers of rural culture like Grandma Wang Xiang abound in the ancient town of Dayang. And the performances of these rural literature and art lovers are all voluntary, and there is no remuneration. In the words of the "actors" themselves, they show the new changes in rural life in Dayang, the new atmosphere of rural revitalization, and promote the vigorous tourism of Dayang Ancient Town, spreading happiness and joy, and it is the power of the right time.
This year, Dayang Town's "Yang A Song Qi Dance" summer "Village Evening" was selected for the 2024 National "Four Seasons Village Evening" demonstration and display activities. Since 2012, Dayang Ancient Town first entered the field of vision of CCTV, so far, it has held hands with CCTV more than 30 times, and columns such as "Walking Around China", "Remember Homesickness" and "Civilization Code" have made special reports on the scenic spot. From the first time Dayang Ancient Town was on CCTV, to frequent CCTV, and then to become a frequent visitor to CCTV, the perfect integration of multiculturalism and the bursting of new ideas of traditional culture are the "secrets" of Dayang Ancient Town's dominance of the screen.
▲Agricultural Industrial Park
Industry singing
Overall planning of "strong brand"
The integrated development of agriculture, forestry, culture, tourism and health, "integration of scenic villages, co-construction and co-governance" is the development direction and the path of practice.
Dayang Yifen Street is located in the core area of the ancient town scenic spot, with such superior location conditions, but because there is no "capable person" to drive and clear development planning, the village collective economy has been weak for a long time, and the villagers have gone out to work to make a living. The change of Yifen Street began in 2021, this year, Zhang Maomao, who has been doing business abroad for a long time, took the initiative to return to his hometown after receiving the invitation of the Dayang Town Party Committee to "participate in the construction of his hometown", and was elected as the secretary of the village party branch and the director of the village committee with a high vote in the election of the village "two committees". After that, under the leadership of Zhang Maomao, Yifenjie organized and held many meetings of the village "two committees", party member forums, and villager congresses to brainstorm on how to change the appearance of the village and strengthen the village-level collective economy. Finally, on the basis of learning from the advanced experience of Gaoping, Lingchuan and other places, combined with the actual development of the village, the idea of "integration of scenic villages, co-construction and co-governance, and integrated development of agriculture, forestry, culture, tourism and health" was clarified. Relying on the advantages of being close to the ancient town scenic spot, Yifen Street adopts the form of renting and buying when it is suitable to buy, and revitalizes the land resources of the villagers' idle and dilapidated houses, and actively builds new production and operation entities such as rural memory halls, cultural experience halls, and folk customs exhibition halls, and tells the historical geography, traditional culture and the regional humanistic spirit embodied in the life of generations of villagers, and strives to build a rural exhibition center for host and guest sharing.
Villages such as Erfen Street, Sanfen Street, Sifen Street, East Street, and West Street, which are close to the ancient town scenic spot, have also fully tapped cultural and tourism resources and developed together. Dongjie Village is a museum of revolutionary history without walls. Here, during the Anti-Japanese War, the Jincheng Central County Committee of the Communist Party of China, the Jincheng Women's Congress, the Peasant Congress, and the Youth Congress were established one after another, and the Taiyue Military Region Arsenal was stationed here, and the red cultural resources were very rich. Dongjie Village has successively carried out orderly development of the village's official residences and commercial residences in the Ming and Qing dynasties, repaired the Jinjia Compound and Flagpole Courtyard, renovated the Rural Tourism Exhibition Hall, built the Red Exhibition Hall of the Jincheng Central County Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Taihang Spiritual History Education Hall, and built a multi-functional format of "Nizhi Courtyard" integrating catering, accommodation, health care and research. The Memorial Hall of the Jincheng Central County Committee of the Communist Party of China was awarded the "Youth Moral and Aesthetic Education Research Base" by the Jincheng Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League, and the "Youth Traditional Culture Education Base" by the Municipal Customs Working Committee, and was included in the Jincheng Primary and Secondary School Students Comprehensive Practice School Research Base.
Dongjie Village and Yifenjie Village also jointly built an agricultural industrial park, transferred more than 3,000 acres of land, established agricultural professional cooperatives, integrated traditional planting and cultural tourism development, planted crops with both ornamental value and economic benefits, and expanded new formats such as youth field teaching and research, realizing a double harvest of tourism and planting.
The integrated development of the cultural, tourism, health and wellness industry has also stimulated the development of a series of "earth" industries, such as Dayang gourmet noodles, cold noodles, stone dried cakes, rice flour pancakes, etc.
A series of activities such as visiting the market, tasting local dishes, appreciating intangible cultural heritage, and fun camping connect the scenery of Dayang. "Eating" has fireworks, "living" has a local flavor, "traveling" has a sense of relaxation, "shopping" has a sense of satisfaction, and "entertainment" has a sense of participation. Nowadays, going to Dayang to taste, experience, and enjoy slow life has become the core way of people's travel. The village has become a scenic spot, the scenery has become a "money scene", and the people's life has become richer and better.
At present, Dayang has entered the "fast lane" of rural construction, vividly interpreting the "acceleration" of leapfrog development. "We are fully prepared to welcome this wave of cultural tourism boom brought to Shanxi, Jincheng and Zezhou by 'Black Myth: Wukong'. Let the 'Living Ancient Town' bring visitors a window to understand traditional Chinese culture. For the future development of Dayang, Wang Chong, secretary of the town party committee, is full of confidence.
We firmly believe that this largest existing ancient town in the country will reap a bumper harvest, and the beautiful picture of rural revitalization will continue to unfold.
Source: Shanxi Farmers Daily