In mid-spring, the vegetation is lush and green. Visitors walk into Qingxi Village, Xielingang Town, High-tech Zone, Yiyang City, Hunan Province, and stroll among the villages and countryside, enjoying the fragrance of books, viewing flowers, and listening to the spring rain. The spring tide surges in the Qingxi River, full of vitality. , picturesque and poetic.
In the mid-1950s, the writer Zhou Libo returned to his hometown Qingxi Village from Beijing and wrote the novel "Great Changes in the Mountain and Township" based on Qingxi Village. He wrote in the book: "I want to dress up and beautify Qingxi Village with my own hands, turning it into a beautiful garden..." In recent years, Qingxi Village has promoted culture with culture by creating a "town of literature". Rural revitalization brings great changes from books to reality.
The village roads are smooth, the courtyards are tidy, and the bookstore nestled among green trees and bamboo forests is a unique scenery in Qingxi Village. Bu Xuebin, a 51-year-old villager, recalled to reporters that in March 2022, he became the "first person to eat crabs" in the village. He took the initiative to transform his house into a Libo bookstore, promoted Zhou Libo's works such as "The Great Changes in Mountains and Villages", and sold Leicha It became his daily routine from then on.
"Literature has become the business card of our village. I have not only found a good way to get rich, but also a rich head." The changes in the past two years have made Bu Xuebin feel particularly deeply: "I used to work in the mines and used my hands to move stones, but now I move books . In order to run a good bookstore, I can speak Mandarin, my expression becomes more fluent, and my cultural level has also improved."
The picture shows the bookstore named after the People's Literature Publishing House in Qingxi Village, Xielingang Town, High-tech Zone, Yiyang City, Hunan Province. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Liu Wangmin
Reading has expanded the spiritual world of villagers, the fragrance of books permeates the countryside, and cultural revitalization has brought about a new atmosphere of development. Today, 21 bookstores named after writers or publishers have been built in Qingxi Village. Among them, the writers’ bookstores are designed and decorated according to their birthplace, creative style and characteristics of their works, providing readers with an immersive reading space.
When the reporter walked into Chi Zijian's bookstore, he was greeted by a simulated scene of Northeast China's "ice and snow": snow, cedars, snow houses, and long icicles under the eaves. Bookstore manager Sun Guiying was born and raised in Heilongjiang and has been married to Qingxi Village for 21 years. As soon as she arrived at the bookstore, she found "memories of growing up." "What Chi Zijian wrote in the book is about my original life in Northeast China. It felt very friendly. After I calmed down and read it, I found my own happiness." She said. The
bookstore provides books, cultural and creative products, etc. The village also regularly holds cultural activities such as literary lectures, reading clubs, readings, Huagu Drama Festival, etc. The book culture of Qingxi Village spreads far and wide. With the continuous improvement of infrastructure and the increasingly beautified village appearance, and the diversified development of agricultural and cultural tourism formats such as ecological tourism, farming cultural experience, and literary study practice, more and more tourists are visiting Qingxi Village to find the beauty of culture in the countryside. , feel "poetry and distance".
Cai Zhen, secretary of the Party branch of Qingxi Village, said that Qingxi Village explores the management model of "company + collective + farmers" to provide villagers with jobs such as instructors, drivers, cleaners, etc., and farm catering, teahouses, and farm stalls in the scenic area. , B&B, etc., creating employment for more than 500 people. In 2023, Qingxi Village received a total of 1.2 million tourists and achieved tourism revenue of more than 10 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 40.3%, driving the village's collective income to 1.2 million yuan.
The picture shows the interior of the signature book collection of contemporary Chinese writers taken by reporters in Qingxi Village. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Liu Wangmin
Qingxi Village is booming and has attracted many young people to return home and start businesses in recent years. 32-year-old Deng Xudong is one of them. When he returned to his hometown in 2019, he deeply felt the huge development prospects of the agricultural, cultural and tourism industry in his hometown, and immediately made the decision to quit his high-paying job in Shenzhen and return to his hometown. In recent years, Deng Xudong has established a family ecological farm by transferring part of the mountain forest, leading the villagers to become rich together. “We hope to brand Qingxi Village’s agriculture as soon as possible, realize the integrated development of agriculture, culture and tourism, and better promote the beauty of our hometown,” he said.
Spring arrives in Qingxi and brings good news. The reporter learned that the collection of signed books by contemporary Chinese writers, which was opened on a trial basis during the Spring Festival this year, has received more than 58,000 signed books donated by writers from all over the country. Cai Zhen said: “Making our literary business card bigger and stronger, developing culture and promoting rural revitalization, Qingxi Village in the future will write more great changes in mountainous villages in the new era."(Reporter Liu Wangmin)
(Source: Xinhua News Agency)
