Source: Economic Daily
Walking into Nanshe Village, Chashan Town, Dongguan City, it is like wandering in a time tunnel.
In the warm winter sun, tourists stroll through the ancient ancestral halls of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, listening to the tour guide tell the story of the deeds and rises and falls of the Xie family; the sun shadow slopes westward, walking through the ancient houses with deep alleys and green tiles and red walls, imagining the fireworks of the ancient village in the past 800 years; finding restaurants with the strong fragrance, you can taste the intangible cultural heritage dish "general rice" and the "marching meat" that melts at the entrance; after a big meal, drink with the music bar of the three or five confidants in the shade of the ancient trees, indulge in the soulful chanting of the live band singers; the night is deep , go back to the homestay where the vine climbed the window, and light a Wanxiang to sleep...
"Tourists in the Pearl River Delta are tired of so-called luxury hotels and are willing to come to rural homestays to experience such a comfortable life." There are many self-driving tourists from Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Huizhou, and they often can't book a room on holidays. Liu Hairong, head of The Hidden Xiang Ancient Garden Homestay in Nanshe Village, said.
Under the normalization of epidemic prevention and control, Dongguan is full of tourism momentum, receiving 36.8 million tourists in the first three quarters of 2021. Most of these beautiful villages, which have become popular tourist destinations, have a common name: characteristic boutique (demonstration) villages.
"In the construction of beautiful villages in Dongguan, through the four echelons of 'clean and tidy villages', 'beautiful and livable villages', 'characteristic boutique villages' and 'characteristic boutique demonstration villages', the beads are strung into chains and connected into pieces, promoting the transformation of the countryside from 'one beauty, one moment beauty, and external beauty' to 'everywhere beauty, beauty at all times, and connotative beauty'. At present, 50 characteristic boutique demonstration villages have been built, and 70 characteristic boutique villages have been created, which has become an important position for the development of rural tourism. Lin Yingpeng, deputy director of the Dongguan Municipal Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, said.
Backed by the consumer market of more than 80 million people in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Dongguan has unlimited rural tourism potential. At the same time, in this young city with more than 10 million permanent residents and an average age of only 34 years old, going to the countryside to find "poetry and far away" has become the daily life of many "post-90s" and "post-00s". Through the creation of characteristic boutique villages, the spillover function of activating the beautiful countryside to revitalize the industry and retain talents is related to the tomorrow of the "world factory".
In order to explore a new path for beautiful villages, Dongguan has created a "global project" model, and has established a library of rural revitalization projects covering 3,730 projects with a total investment of more than 435 billion yuan. The improvement of the characteristic boutique demonstration villages has been included in one visible and tangible project after another. Lin Yingpeng introduced that in the process of building 120 characteristic boutique (demonstration) villages, Dongguan encourages villages to dig deep into their respective resource endowments, relying on ecology, characteristic agriculture, history and culture and red resources, etc., to activate a diversified "beautiful economy".
Ancient buildings and intangible cultural heritage are unique resources for ancient villages such as Nanshe and Tangwei. The reporter saw in Nanshe Village that the newly created "Nanguifang" Double Creation Zone has become a new space for the revitalization of old village residences and the living display experience of intangible cultural heritage, which is one of the key projects of Nanshe to create a characteristic boutique demonstration village. According to reports, Nanshe Village has a clear direction - to build a leisure tourism destination in the Greater Bay Area, investing about 97.51 million yuan, by creating a number of landscape sketches, improving a number of public facilities, and creating a set of humanistic elements... Strive to polish the "Ancient Village Tour" golden signboard.
At the same time, Nanshe Village makes full use of intangible cultural heritage resources to carry out traditional folk activities such as "Nanshe Zhaijiao" to create a boutique route for traditional culture to find its roots. At present, "Nanshe Zhaijiao" and "Nanshe Jiu daGui" have successfully applied for the list of intangible cultural heritage of Dongguan City, and launched special shops such as "Nanshe Centennial Pastry" and "For Food Alley" local traditional food market. Nowadays, the "one ancestral hall, one culture" and "one route and one experience" of the Nanshe cultural tourism integration brand activities have gradually become famous in the Greater Bay Area.
Can the red resources scattered throughout Guanxiang form a multiplier effect with characteristic leisure agriculture? Jingmei Village, Dongkeng Town, has begun to explore in the creation of a characteristic boutique demonstration village.
The reporter came to the Hongli Park built in Jingmei Village, and on a golden lychee sculpture, the red story of "Lychee given to Chairman Mao" touched people's hearts. In 1975, the Jingmei Brigade gave the harvest of lychees to Chairman Mao's old man's family, offering a heart of the poor and lower-middle peasants to the great leader, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee replied to the letter and returned the lychee money, and the party's clean and honest style remained in the hearts of the Jingmei villagers. Wang Yijia, assistant director of the village committee, introduced that while telling the red story well, Jingmei Village carries out the "Red Lychee Festival" cultural experience activities during the annual lychee harvest period, breaking through the development mode of single planting, and building a brand for lychee, strawberry and other industries, giving leisure tourism functions.
At present, global tourism is in full swing in Dongguan, Mayong Town and Chashan Town will create a guangdong province full-scale tourism demonstration zone, and Liaobu Town has been selected as the first batch of national rural tourism key towns. It is believed that with the completion of a sparkling characteristic boutique (demonstration) village, it will continue to lead the butterfly change of "beautiful countryside" and lay a solid foundation for the development of global tourism in Guanyi. (Economic Daily reporter Zheng Yang)