Research on the Protection and Renewal of Traditional Settlements from the Perspective of Rural Tourism: A Case Study of Yujia Village in Taihang Mountain

[Source: Hebei Provincial Department of Natural Resources_Science and Technology Development]

Research on the protection and renewal of traditional settlements from the perspective of rural tourism

——Take Yujia Village in the Taihang Mountains as an example

0 Introduction

With the acceleration of urbanization and the improvement of material and cultural living standards, people's demand for entertainment and leisure is increasing. Rural tourism, characterized by its original rural scenery and simple folk customs, is increasingly favored by the public. The rural revitalization strategy clarifies the mainland's beautiful vision and firm task of achieving strong agriculture, rural beauty and rich farmers, and the development of rural tourism is also an effective way to achieve rural revitalization.

In recent years, as a "famous historical and cultural village in China", Yujia Village has attracted surrounding citizens, photography enthusiasts, sketching groups, architecture students and leisure tourists because of its unique tourism resources of traditional mountain settlements. The rational use of tourism resources in Yujia Village to carry out tourism is to meet the requirements of rural revitalization in the new era, and it is also an important way to achieve self-renewal and development.

1. Overview of the research object

1.1 Geographical location

Yujia Village is located in the Taihang Mountainous Area in the central and western part of Jingxi County, Hebei Province, on the border of Hebei Province and Shanxi Province, and is located in the fifth area of Taihang Baxi. Yujia Village is only 50km away from the provincial capital Shijiazhuang, only 15km away from Jingxian County, and Yujia Village is only 16.9km away from the nearest scenic spot, the national 4A scenic spot Cangyan Mountain Scenic Area.

1.2 Natural conditions

Yujia Village is surrounded by rolling hills, with high terrain in the northwest and low in the southeast. Yujia Village is also known as "if you don't see the village at the entrance of the village", the location is hidden and quiet. The village is located on the gentle slope of the central hinterland, and the southern part of the village is crossed by a river, and the location of Yujia Village is also in line with the characteristics of backing mountains and water, negative yin and yang, which is conducive to lighting and ventilation, and can prevent natural disasters such as mudslides and landslides. The geographical location of Yujia Village is closed and less affected by the outside world, and the original ecological living state has been maintained to this day.

Yujia village belongs to a warm temperate semi-humid continental monsoon climate, the annual temperature changes little, precipitation is mainly affected by the southeast monsoon, inter-year, seasonal and regional precipitation is uneven, more severe weather, drought and little rain. Wise and hardworking villagers used stone wells, stone cellars, etc. to collect rainwater, so that we had the stone water culture we see today.

1.3 History and humanities

Yujia Village was Yu Qian's eldest grandson Yu Youdao who moved here from Qiantang, Zhejiang Province during the Chenghua period (circa 1486), forming a stable clan social relationship linked by blood ties, and the architectural style is therefore quite southern. Yu's family worked hard and pioneered the construction of houses to create this traditional mountain village and ancient village.

There are many folk activities in Yujia Village, especially during major festivals such as Spring Festival, temple fair, and rain seeking. The worship of the Yu family is diverse, there are many temples in the village, and the family worships the land. The Yu family also has the custom of returning to their hometown to worship their ancestors, and every second day of the lunar calendar, the men of the whole village worship their ancestors in the ancestral hall of the Yu clan.

2. Extraction of settlement tourism resources and characteristic types

The definition of tourism resources in the "Classification, Investigation and Evaluation of Tourism Resources" is: "All kinds of things and factors in nature and human society that can attract tourists, can be used for tourism development, and can produce economic, social and environmental benefits can be regarded as tourism resources", as far as traditional settlements are concerned, tourism resources can include material elements such as settlement forms, characteristic public buildings and residences, landscape elements, etc., as well as non-material elements such as historical humanities, cultural landscape elements, and folk characteristics.

2.1 Settlement form and surrounding landscape

The overall layout of Yujia Village settlement is high in the northwest and low in the southeast, depending on the mountain, covering an area of about 12.1hm2. It occupies a hidden location surrounded by mountains and has gates on all sides, making the settlement like a natural city. Overlooking Yujia Village, the overall shape is like a phoenix spreading its wings and full of vitality. The settlement is centered on the spiritual and cultural center - Yu's Ancestral Hall. Inside the settlement, the bluestone-paved six streets, seven lanes, eighteen huts and twelve roads form a vertical and horizontal road network. The village passes through the mountains, village gates, gate temples, streets and alleys and then to the courtyard, gradually progressing, manifested as five levels of village periphery, boundary, street, residential and courtyard.

Yujia Village is surrounded by mountains, and Yu's family has cultivated barren mountains for generations, worked hard, formed an organic settlement form that conforms to nature, and also created the surrounding pastoral landscape - rice terraces. The outline of the settlement is very harmonious with the curve of the terraces. The Yu family bowed in the terraced fields, sweating like rain, which is also a beautiful landscape.

2.2 Public space and public buildings

There are a total of 12 public buildings in Yujia Village, mainly including two types: one related to human feelings and society, such as Yu's ancestral hall, theater, theater, ancient bridge, etc.; The other is related to spiritual worship, such as Guanyin Pavilion, Qingliang Pavilion, Zhenwu Temple, Dawang Temple, etc. Public buildings are mostly arranged on the main axis of the village, which is an important place for folk cultural activities such as sacrifices in the village, reflecting people's diversified spiritual pursuits.

Located in the center of the settlement, the Yu ancestral hall is also the spiritual core of Yujia Village, reflecting the core cohesion of the clan system. The hierarchy of the ancestral courtyard is obvious, the main house is built on a high platform, which is a five-bay hard mountain top, the east row house (east box) is a hard mountain top, lower than the main room, and the west row house (west box) is a single slope roof. Entering the courtyard through the low courtyard door, the space becomes open and reverence is born. Flower mullioned window sashes, brick stacked eaves, simple mounds, stone monuments and wooden plaques, ancient Ding Longbai and other details are also of great ornamental value.

Qingliang Pavilion is the east gate of the village, located at the highest point of the village, and is the landmark building of Yujia Village. Qingliang Pavilion has three wonders: there is no foundation: the bottom floor is all stone dry; Boulder construction. According to records, the pavilion was built by the seventh emperor of Qian in Xichun. Qingliang Pavilion is a coupon-type megalithic building, with two floors of all-stone construction below, imitation wood structure, canine teeth staggered, three-story brick and wood structure, pillar cloister, dedicated to the Jade Emperor. The nine-ridged cornices of Qingliang Pavilion are magnificent, rugged and elegant, which can be described as a miracle of architectural history.

2.3 Residential features

There are 314 complete courtyards in Yujia Village, mainly stone kiln courtyard-style courtyards, and the architectural forms are free, flexible, diverse and unified. The courtyard has an obvious central axis, mostly one into the courtyard, less across the courtyard, the courtyard is mostly narrow and rectangular, the courtyard wall is tall, open small windows or no windows, wind and sand prevention and ensure privacy. Most of the building materials are local stone, which is convenient to take and adapt to local conditions. The architecture and decoration are simple and natural, simple and elegant.

Taking the double-gate stone courtyard as an example, the overall layout is the main courtyard courtyard and a narrow and long span courtyard on the east side. The two courtyards are separated by a building and both have doors to the outside. Passing through the low hall, it faces a double ticket cave partition wall with a shrine in the center. From the doorway on both sides into the courtyard, flower stands, stone benches, etc. have a very living atmosphere. The houses are all flat roofs and have a free layout. The main room is a three-bay room, the bright room opens the door, the outer wall is about 900mm thick, the interior is a horizontal cave issued by stone, no beams and no columns, warm in winter and cool in summer, fully reflecting the wisdom of civil construction.

2.4 Elements of the cultural landscape

The cultural landscape elements of Yujia Village are mainly reflected in stone utensils, architectural details and spatial nodes. Yujia Village uses stone to build houses, bluestone paves roads, and uses stone living utensils to build a natural stone world. In the era of small-scale peasant economy, stone tools such as stone wells, stone millstones, horse tethered stones, stone benches, stone troughs, stone bridges, stone monuments, stone carvings, etc. facilitated daily life, and now attract tourists to stop and visit as cultural attractions. In terms of architectural decoration, brick, stone and wood carvings are very distinctive, and the forms are simple and diverse without losing elegance, mostly found in ridges, piers, pedestals, doors and windows, gables, gates and other positions. Lofts, arches, flying tickets, steps and other limited treatments are mostly placed at the entrances and nodes of streets and alleys, which play the role of space limitation, organization and identification.

2.5 Folk customs and customs

In addition to understanding the stone folk culture, Yujia Village tourism can also experience leisure and relaxation and experience the original rural life. Yujia Village has many folk activities and simple folk customs. Tourists can experience farming life, taste farmhouse meals, listen to plays, embroider, make stone carvings and other activities. The temple fair held three times a year in the village and the six theaters also fully reflect the richness of its cultural life.

Folk opera is the main folk opera, and it is said that the troupe performing in the village has a history of 300 years, and its unique theater culture highlights the comfort of people's lives. Although the houses are less open at this stage, the hospitable villagers are also welcome to visit, and visitors can visit stone tools and utensils related to daily life and labor in the Stone Folk Museum. In addition, the market culture created by the exchange of materials with neighboring settlements is also very vivid and vibrant.

In summary, the material elements such as the settlement and landscape of Yujia Village and the intangible elements of humanities and folklore together constitute a unique tourism resource of stone ancient villages, and thus become the focus of tourism development. In the process of tourism development, how to give full play to the development advantages of external tourism resources on the basis of retaining the original living state is the key issue of tourism development in Yujia Village.

3. The current situation of tourism development in Yujia Village

Yujia Village is rich in tourism resources and has great potential for tourism development. In recent years, Yujia Village has actively carried out tourism development and construction, through research and visits, we found that there are some problems in rural tourism development in landscape optimization, service management, tourism industry structure optimization, etc., and how to coordinate protection and development has become the main problem of Yujia Village's tourism development status.

3.1 The overall style of the settlement is poor and needs to be further optimized

Yujiazhuang New Village is built next to each other on the north side of the old village, with a chaotic form and different styles from the stone characteristic villages of the old village. The businesses on both sides of the asphalt road in the village are more modern, which contrasts significantly with the ancient village. The surrounding agricultural terraced landscape is scattered, the river on the south side is overgrown with weeds, the environmental quality is poor, and the surrounding landscape of the settlement needs to be further optimized.

3.2 The quality of construction is average, and the living environment needs to be improved

The main houses in the village have good style characteristics, and some of them have caused certain damage to the architectural features due to renovation. Some of the structures have fallen into disrepair, walls have collapsed, and some houses have even become places for raising livestock. The phenomena such as the chaotic piling of production materials around the building, the poor environment of the streets and alleys, and the dilapidated facades along the streets have a great impact on the overall appearance of the village.

3.3 The tour route is chaotic and lacks scientific planning and management

The tourism management of the village is independently managed by the village committee, the tourist reception center is located on the north side of the village, and the ticket sales window is on the south side of the village, so that many tourists enter the village directly. In the tour planning, there are problems such as lack of systematic tour routes, incomplete breakage of scenic spots, imperfect navigation system, poor tourist experience, and lack of leisure space.

3.4 The structure of the tourism industry is incomplete, and the function of leisure tourism consumption is not perfect

At present, the tourism form of the village is mainly based on visiting the village form and stone buildings, and most of the tourists leave directly by car after the tour, the tourism form is single, and the tourism-related industries have not been developed. In addition, the hospitable and simple Yu family members have also suffered serious losses due to lack of job opportunities.

3.5 The service facilities are not perfect and the publicity is not enough

Although there is a tourist information center, it is almost unused. Entertainment and leisure items are not abundant, and supporting service facilities such as health rooms, restaurants, garbage cans, public toilets, etc. are not perfect. The tourism image is not clear, the publicity is not enough, and the market needs to be accelerated.

4. Protection and renewal strategy of Yujia village from the perspective of rural tourism

Rural tourism itself is one of the ways of settlement protection, and the sustainable development of tourism is the key to coordinating settlement protection and renewal. A single tourism industry can no longer meet the needs of diversified and personalized tourism groups, but should improve the complete tourism industry structure to promote the development of rural tourism to a higher level. Make use of the advantages of tourism development, improve the construction of tourism by improving the settlement environment and industrial structure, and help rural revitalization. Here are five possible strategies:

4.1 Overall protection of settlements and landscape optimization

In line with the principle of authenticity protection, the use of surrounding mountains to create leisure spaces and village landscapes, as well as the development of fruit and vegetable picking gardens, sketching and other services; Carry out overall style improvement of villages, and transform new houses with abrupt forms to unify the overall style of villages; Carry out river improvement to create a characteristic village landscape.

4.2 Inherit traditional construction techniques to improve residential buildings and carry out organic renewal

Use traditional construction techniques to transform and utilize idle houses, and give them new functions on the premise of retaining the texture of traditional settlements and residential styles, such as placing commercial functions or opening them as homestay museums; In terms of architectural detail decoration, simplify traditional architectural symbols, and use contemporary design techniques combined with traditional construction techniques to inherit and develop traditional decorative arts; Combine traditional villages with beautiful village construction to create a Yujia village with rural memories, beautiful environment and comfortable life.

4.3 Improve the management system and reasonably plan the tourism route

Improve the management system and improve management efficiency. Taking into account the functions of residence and tourism, increase tourist trails and facilities, increase green square nodes, and enrich the village system. It has formed a village functional pattern with mountain ecological tourism and fruit and vegetable picking in the north and south, and residence, tourism services, entertainment experience, product consumption and other functions in the central part.

4.4 Improve the structure of the tourism industry and enrich the participatory tourism experience

Promote characteristic folk culture, explore local crafts and folk customs, and meet the needs of tourists for cultural experience. Build a village industrial system featuring the theme of stone folk culture, cultural and ecological tourism as the starting point, and supplemented by stone handicrafts, agricultural and sideline products, picking, and homestays, so as to enrich the participatory tourism experience. Promote the vitality of the local economy through tourism and consumption, expand the product market, retain local residents, retain their traditional lifestyle, and protect the village.

4.5 Improve the service system and increase publicity

Infrastructure is built on the principles of economy, pragmatism and classification, and ancillary public facilities are planned and improved in stages, and folk cultural activities are held regularly. Keep pace with the times, use emerging media for publicity, increase publicity efforts, and attract people from all walks of life to visit and travel.

5 Conclusion

Traditional villages are the epitome of agricultural civilization. In the context of rural revitalization, coordinating the protection and renewal of rural tourism and traditional settlements is the key to the sustainable development of traditional villages. Based on field research, this paper discovers and analyzes problems, and puts forward protection and renewal strategies in terms of settlement and building level, service management, and tourism industry structure optimization. It is hoped to promote the sustainable development of tourism in Yujia Village and provide a reference for the modern adaptive protection and renewal of rural settlements.

Source: Hebei Survey and Design, Issue 2, 2023

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