Young people in the DN Yucun Digital Nomad Commune (photo provided by the interviewee)
The spring cherry blossoms are in full bloom, powdering the wilderness and stacking the distant mountains. Young people shuttle under the trees in groups of threes and twos, using their mobile phones to freeze their wanton youth. The breeze blows, and the petals flutter up the ends of the hair, like pink crystals on black satin.
The slightly drunk young man had just walked out of the pink color, and was stumped by the sea of tender yellow rape flowers. In the village of Yu Village in Anji County, Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province, the balance of budget-conscious holidays does not exist. This group of young people not only enjoys the freedom of cherry blossoms and rape flowers, but also has a shared workstation that does not delay the recharge of their purses.
Your right to be beautiful is a city's promise to all its citizens, and it is also an unshakable proposition for young people to look to the future. In the face of a beautiful environment, they are yearning, enjoying, and defenders.
Seeing all this, Xu Song felt closer and closer to his original dream. As the initiator of DN Yucun Digital Nomad Commune, he has always hoped that young people can live a free future in the countryside, so that the countryside will no longer wither because of the presence of young people. In Yucun, he and more than 100 young people gathered.
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The shredded sunlight from the gaps in the branches and leaves jumps on the coffee lid, and the chickens and birds are singing from afar. The café "Lane to the Commune" is in this roaring forest. The café converted from the old warehouse of the state-owned forest farm restores the supply and marketing cooperatives in people's memory. Throughout the walls of the café, there are old televisions, radios and sewing machines – signs of the affluence of the old days. The empty interior, from nostalgic arcade machines to vintage enamel cups, is instantly accessible as far as the eye can see.
"Lane to the Commune" café (photo provided by the interviewee)
These old objects were collected one by one by Ni Cheng, the founder of the café and born in the 90s. He is a native of Changxing, Huzhou, originally engaged in media work, and by chance, he transformed an old firewood house into a national style café in Lu Village, Balidian Town, Wuxing District, and was regarded as a "top stream" by young tourists.
After tasting the sweetness from the transformation, he put the ideal experiment on the Xiaopu Forest Farm in Changxing County. The ingenuity inside the café is certainly impressive, but the green waters and green mountains outside the café are even more difficult to replicate.
Clusters of bamboo forests, stacked emerald green, green grass covers the ground, and birds sweep the sky. Founded in 1952, this state-owned forest farm is now a blueprint for development in the base color of protection, and in addition to the café "Xiangxiang Commune", there are also teahouses, art exhibitions and playgrounds under construction.
The weather is clear and the grass is fragrant. Outside the café, towering ancient ginkgo trees are spreading their new leaves. In autumn, the leaves turn golden, and the ancient ginkgo promenade in Xiaopu Town will become an eye-catching artifact. The town has 3,708 ancient ginkgo trees that are more than 100 years old, 5 ginkgo trees that are more than 1,000 years old, and the oldest ginkgo "queen" and "king" have been watching each other for more than 1,500 years.
Ginkgo grove (photo provided by the interviewee)
What is little known is that if you want to have a grand scene of "turning yellow ginkgo biloba all over the ground, and suddenly succeeding in the world", it is inseparable from careful maintenance, especially after the ginkgo biloba bears fruit, it needs to be picked one by one, and too many hanging fruits or even rotting will affect the viewing experience. Previously, several villagers were responsible for one ancient ginkgo tree or one villager was responsible for several trees, but due to the low price of ginkgo biloba, the villagers' enthusiasm for picking fruits was not high, which once led to a "collective strike" of ginkgo, leaving only sporadic leaves.
In recent years, after the implementation of the forest chief system, the scattered and disorderly state of the ancient ginkgo trees that was originally protected has become unified and managed by special personnel. As a result, the ancient ginkgo trees have been restored to flourishing, attracting many tourists.
According to Zhong Yao, a staff member of the Xiaopu Town Ecotourism Office, the town has set up a special fund for the protection of ancient ginkgo trees, and 3 yuan will be included in the fund for each ticket, plus special government grants, about 2 million yuan per year will be used for conservation.
This is a gratifying result: the maintenance of ancient ginkgo trees is guaranteed by funds, and the refined management can be achieved through professional teams and equipment, and villagers can get commissions for participating in fruit picking and fertilization, and they can get shares and rents from the income of tickets and homestays in the "ten-mile silver season", and they can also get additional income from selling agricultural products to tourists at their doorsteps. With the blessing of gold and silver, green mountains and green waters are more sustainable, thus forming a virtuous circle.
To improve the villagers' awareness of environmental protection, positive incentives are important, and education and punishment are also essential, which not only requires standardized standards, but also needs strong implementation. Huzhou has formed a working system of "forest chief + forest ranger + grid member" to expand, promote and protect green in an all-round way. In the past, villagers destroyed forests to grow tea in order to increase their income. What was once a destroyer is now a protector, a ranger or grid worker who is striving to be an ecological pioneer.
"The multifaceted ecological governance problem is like diffuse hemorrhage, which needs to be addressed at the root. Sun Xianlong, Secretary of the Party Group and Director of the Standing Committee of the Huzhou Municipal People's Congress, said.
In his view, in order to regulate the actions of the people, the expression of relevant laws and regulations needs to be as easy to understand as possible, "First, the legislative work should adhere to the party's leadership, implement the party's innovative theories, follow the party's resolutions, and transform the 'party language' into 'French language'; second, we should be good at collecting the specific demands of the people on environmental protection, and refine the 'group language' into 'French language'; third, we should sort out and summarize the specific practice in ecological construction, and sort out the principles, ideas, and methods for solving problems into 'French language'." ”
This is also an important principle followed in the formulation of the "Huzhou Ecological Civilization Model City Construction Promotion Regulations" (hereinafter referred to as the "Regulations"), which will be officially implemented on May 1.
This is an impressive set of data: In response to social concerns, the Standing Committee of the Huzhou Municipal People's Congress organized more than 30 consultations, symposiums, demonstration meetings, hearings, and democratic consultation meetings, and solicited opinions on the draft regulations more than 10 times, with the participation of more than 2,000 people, and extensively collected more than 600 opinions and suggestions from all over the world.
The drafters and revisionists of the Regulations reflect the different demands of the people as much as possible. The focus of the people's attention is different, the people in the central urban area are more concerned about clean air and clean natural environment, while the people in the suburbs are more concerned about the establishment of ecological compensation mechanism; There are some things that the people have not even thought about, such as the current ecological protection pays more attention to water, soil and air and less attention to pollution in other areas, but I think that under the proposal of the experts in front of the people, the government has launched the "starry sky protection project" to allow citizens to avoid urban light pollution and see the starry sky, which has also been translated into the provisions of the "Regulations".
Whether it is young people who transform the beauty of ecology into entrepreneurial assistance, or villagers who use the beauty of ecology to broaden the road to prosperity, they are all imperceptibly casting "votes" for the ecological "law protection", and they all use practical actions to defend their "right to maintain beauty". Only by "protecting the law" for beauty can beauty "speak", ecology to beauty, life to beauty, and industry to beauty. And a gorgeous transformation journey of traditional industries has already kicked off in Huzhou.
rebirth
Transforming old warehouses, helping ancient ginkgo biloba recover, revitalizing originally neglected resources, giving new missions, and instilling new vitality are the most directly felt changes for the people. In fact, deeper changes have already taken place.
Rockery flowing water (Ke Yuyuan/picture)
The rockeries are lined up, the flowing water is murmuring, the fish are playing in the water, and the fountains are churning, so the fresh and elegant landscape is not in the garden, but in the Tianneng Group Circular Economy Industrial Park in Changxing, Huzhou. The elegant fountain does not use ordinary water sources, but discharged water from the factory. During the Spring and Autumn Period, Wu Yue competed for hegemony, and King Wu took stones to build a city in Changxing. In the 50s of the 20th century, due to the lack of energy, which hindered the development of local industries, the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee decided to develop coal mining. One of the main businesses of Tianneng Group's predecessor "Coal Mountain No. 1 Battery Factory" was to repair mining lamps for Changguang Coal Mine, and became the earliest local enterprise to contact lead-acid batteries.
In the early days of reform and opening up, most of the lead-acid battery enterprises in Changxing County were in the form of family workshops, which together with electromechanical, textile, building materials, etc., constituted the core industries of the local area, and promoted the rapid development of the local economy. According to the memories of the local villagers, the air, soil and water pollution were very serious, "the windows did not dare to open, the clothes did not dare to go out to the sun, and even the human body had health problems." ”
With the gradual depletion of coal mine resources, environmental pollution control and industrial transformation and upgrading are imminent. At the beginning of the 21st century, the battery industry in Changxing County abandoned the extensive development path and began to "change the cage for the bird, the phoenix nirvana", and turned around decisively. Tianneng Group has also started a green transformation, taking advantage of the spring breeze of green travel of electric vehicles, focusing on battery recycling, creating a closed loop of the green industrial chain, and driving the vigorous development of the local lead-acid battery industry for electric vehicles.
On the hand-drawn map of Huzhou's ecology, agricultural and cultural tourism projects abound, and Tianneng Circular Economy Industrial Park is one of the few industrial representatives. The industrial park has witnessed a farewell revolution to the predatory development of resources.
In the former coal mining area, a national green manufacturing industrial park has sprung up. iKang Technology chose to settle in it because of the green development potential here.
Compared with the traditional industries with high pollution, high energy consumption and high emissions, the "indigenous" Tianneng Group and the "foreigner" iKang Technology are both representatives of new quality productivity, which is better than mining "gold content" with "green content" and taking into account economic, environmental and social benefits.
The transformation and upgrading of the industry is inseparable from talents. From the words scrolling on the screen at the entrance of Tianneng Group's circular economy industrial park, the blessings to birthday employees can be seen that the company cares for and respects talents. In recent years, the staff structure of Tianneng Group has shown a younger trend, with about 20% of employees aged 30 and below, post-90s employees taking over the baton management, and post-00 employees taking up their posts one after another, injecting a steady stream of fresh blood into the development of the enterprise.
The older generation of villagers learned from the pain of "suffering from the destruction of the ecological environment" and joined the ranks of environmental protection, while the younger generation grew up in a beautiful ecological environment and subconsciously had the consciousness of protecting the environment, and they paid more attention to ecological value than letting their purses bulge.
In the consultation process of the "Regulations", Zhai Zhongjie, deputy to the Huzhou Municipal People's Congress and chairman of Zhejiang Rui High-tech Materials Co., Ltd., suggested that in order to strengthen the talent guarantee for the construction of a model city of ecological civilization, on the one hand, it is necessary to increase the attraction of high-level talents, and on the other hand, it is necessary to increase the introduction of blue-collar skilled workers. As a result, the official text of the Regulations has added a provision of "attaching importance to the training of skilled workers".
Bringing in talented people is only a matter of playing a good "first move"; only by retaining talented people can we play a good "long-term chess." The lucid waters and lush mountains of Huzhou have made a "great contribution" in attracting and retaining talents.
In his book Our National Parks, nature writer John Moore wrote: "Thousands of people who have lived in an over-civilized state have begun to discover that to walk into the mountains is to walk into their homes, that nature is a necessity, and that mountain parks and mountain reserves serve not only as a source of timber and irrigation for rivers, but also as a source of life." ”
As a necessity, lucid waters and lush mountains are undoubtedly a good remedy for young people, and the café "Xiangxiang Commune", which is still in the trial operation stage, has undertaken many team building activities for employees of nearby enterprises. Listening to the sound of the wind in the bamboo forest, looking at the smiles of peers, and tasting the coffee in their hands, people feel full of happiness in the surging greenery.
reflux
Lucid waters and lush mountains are a key resource to attract young people to the countryside. The poet Rabindranath Tagore once said, "I feel strongly that life in the city has built high walls around us, cutting us off from the world." ”
Reconstructing the connection with the world is the source of motivation for many young people to choose to go to Yucun to become digital nomads. As the first and second members of the Digital Nomad Commune, Dong Xia and Gu Lulu have lived in Yucun with their dogs for more than two years. They swapped the BMW for a second-hand van and made custom interiors and exteriors to transform them into "all-purpose cars" that could be used for stalls, camping and flooring.
Dong Xiaxia, Gu Lulu and their dog's daily life in Yucun (Jiang Yuran/Photo)
They are designers and car show planners respectively, and when they have a car show, they travel to various cities on business, and when they have free time, they drive around the village to explore unknown treasures. They once encountered a large windmill in the mountain and watched it up close, and also took advantage of the sunset to explore the lake they saw on the top of the mountain, thus unlocking two new strongholds: Dagang Mountain and Heping Reservoir. They will also actively participate in the trunk market held in the village, mainly selling flowers and balloons, with a relaxed mentality of giving themselves as gifts when they can't sell out, and they can't help but raise the corners of their mouths when they encounter a three-hour turnover of more than 1,000.
There are not many young people like Dong Xia and Gu Lulu who have "gone against the current" from big cities to small mountain villages. There are thousands of people who have lived in the Digital Nomad Commune. At present, the beds in the commune are full, and if you want to become a new tenant, you need to make an appointment to queue.
Xu Song once made statistics that the top three factors that attract young people to come to Anji to become digital nomads are: community atmosphere, mature community and ecological environment. It can be seen that lucid waters and lush mountains are an important factor in retaining young people, and the young people who stay behind will also become an important force for rural revitalization.
The two-way rush between natural ecology and daily life has provided fertile soil for the dreams of young people to grow and grow. In Yucun, the digital nomad Li Li founded the OKKA Country Cycling Club in just 21 days, and also developed more than 30 special cycling routes, opening up the beautiful natural scenery, healthy lifestyle and the villagers' channels to get rich.
"To get rich, you have to build roads, and the roads to the countryside have already been built, but the important thing is to 'come to people'. Xu Song said, "The repaired 'road' is like an operating system, and the people who are attracted are like various applications that rely on the system to actively grow." ”
In Huzhou, the roads leading to the countryside are full of green waters and green mountains. The ecological environment is not only a magnet for attracting young people from outside, but also a cornerstone for local young people to start their own businesses. Taking Anji as an example, since 2019, nearly 50,000 young college students have been attracted to employment and entrepreneurship, and the permanent population has increased by nearly 100,000, an increase of more than 20%.
Lu Yingfeng, who was born after 85, is a well-known "crab third generation" in Yang Wei Village, Wuxing District, and he founded the Yang Guizhen crab brand in the name of his grandmother, with annual sales of tens of millions of yuan.
In 2018, Taihu Lake carried out the remediation of the aquaculture industry and returned crabs to the lake in an all-round way. In the previous year, Wuxing District attracted Yang Guizhen crabs from Wuzhong District of Suzhou in the form of investment promotion. Lu Yingfeng established a 1,600-acre crab manor in the "World Irrigation Engineering Heritage" - Yangxiao, the core ancient village of Taihu Lake and Ligang. Good water can raise crabs well, and the high-quality Taihu Lake water is purified and filtered and then drained into the crab breeding base, and special attention is paid to the near-zero discharge to the ecological environment in the breeding process.
Yang Wei Village, where the crab base is located, sits on high-quality Taihu Lake small phenol soil and night tide mud, and the fruits and vegetables grown are of good quality and fragrant, and as early as the 20th century, people from the city drove to purchase them. The villagers who have eaten the dividends of the ecological environment have a simple concept of protection for good water and good soil in their subconscious.
In recent years, with Huzhou's increasing attention to the ecological environment, the environmental sanitation in the village has been greatly improved to the naked eye. The willows hang down beside the clear stream, the smooth stone road winds and quiets, and you can see earthworms twisting and turning out to shop when you walk beside the dense grass.
In addition to fruit and vegetable planting, crab farming and the development of special Taihu lily products, the quiet natural environment also has the endowment of developing cultural tourism. B&Bs, cafes, pet parks and other emerging formats are booming.
Song Xiaofeng, a post-85 generation who is optimistic about the development potential of his hometown and has the idea of returning to his roots, originally started a business in Beijing, and later returned to his hometown to start a trading company. According to his observation, more and more young people are returning to their hometowns, and the natural scenery of the village is a valuable resource.
Hui Qing
Walking on the country roads of Huzhou, there is no shortage of young faces. In the beautiful natural environment, it seems to be a blockbuster film. Young people who are keen to explore and share beauty on social platforms are not immune to beautiful scenery. Drive for hours just to see the fragrance of ten miles of ginkgo, queue for more than ten meters to take a photo with the mountains and deep lakes, not to mention the flowers and plants close at hand, and the fresh air that can be freely breathed.
In Hongmiao Village, Meixi Town, Anji County, more than 50 check-in points have been arranged around the "Deep Blue Project Cafe", which was converted from an abandoned mine pit. In the two years since its opening, the number of visitors has exceeded 700,000, and the operation team has increased to 127 people, with an average age of 25 years old. It is understood that Hongmiao Village will continue to "play with the pit" and transform the abandoned mine pit into a hotel, an outdoor sports base, etc.
Nineteen years ago, the "two mountains" theory spread from Huzhou to the whole country. Today, Huzhou is a large city with a population of 3.439 million. People's understanding and response to ecology is no longer as simple as shutting down highly polluting mines and engaging in agricultural planting, and innovative practices such as digital nomads and ecological scenic spots are constantly emerging. The beautiful dream of turning lucid waters and lush mountains into gold and silver mountains is constantly expanding. Huzhou, with more young people to "return to the youth". This is the beautiful proposition of 3.439 million Huzhou people.
With the formal adoption of the "Regulations" and will be implemented, Huzhou is moving towards a "model". Back in 2015, Huzhou first obtained legislative power, and the first substantive local regulation focused on ecological civilization. In 2016, the "Regulations on the Construction of Huzhou Ecological Civilization Pilot Demonstration Zone" was officially promulgated, and with this as the "leader", a "1+N" ecological civilization legislative system was formed. In 2022, the 15th Party Congress of Zhejiang Province has given Huzhou a new goal and new positioning to build a model city of ecological civilization.
The new "Regulations" thus began the gestation period. It took several years for the "Regulations", which gathered the wisdom of many parties, to finally be promulgated and became the "new leader", laying a new legislative foundation for Huzhou's steady and "green".
"To promote both high-quality development and high-level protection, legislation is a process of balancing interests, coordinating and coordinating, and forming a consensus on responsibilities. Sun Xianlong said.
In the past 20 years, from awakening, to pioneering, to demonstrating, and then to modeling, Huzhou's road to ecological civilization construction has gone farther and wider. From the government, to enterprises, to the public, the awareness of ecological protection, especially the awareness of the rule of law, has been significantly improved. From domestic to international, Huzhou's ecological samples will usher in a larger display stage.
Under the gaze of classic animated sculptures such as Sheriff Black Cat and Monkey King, you can go to the stepped youth library to pick up a favorite book, and then put the special drink of the "Beauty in Yucun" coffee shop on the table, let the warm spring breeze caress the tips of your hair, lower your head and immerse yourself in the interest of reading, and look up to let the blue sky and white clouds wash away your eye fatigue.
Such a leisurely place that blends with the natural scenery has almost become a regular configuration in the countryside of Huzhou. Young people are regaining their youth in a young ecology.
"Through incubation, let the ecology become a living thing, and when it has vitality, it can achieve self-growth. Xu Song said, "When the business with the aesthetics and preferences of young people grows in the countryside, more seeds will be gathered, the branches and leaves will continue to expand and spread, and more young people will be attracted to come." ”
Contributing writer Ke Yuyuan
Editor-in-charge: Dai Chunchen