2025-05-04
Culture is the lifeblood of rural areas, and creative industries are the key to activating that lifeblood. On April 29, 2025, the seventh Diaoyuan Forum grandly opened in "China's Most Beautiful Camphor Ancient Village"—Diaoyuan-Alor Valley in Ji'an, Jiangxi.
As the first high-end platform for rural revitalization in China, centered on the core theme "Life Flourishes in the Countryside, Civilization Revives in the Countryside," this dialogue focused on the intersection of rural development and creative industries. It gathered numerous practitioners of rural revitalization, leaders in cultural creativity, international brand representatives, and elites from government, industry, academia, and research to explore a comprehensive development model for rural areas, aiming to elevate Chinese rural culture to a world-class IP.
The seventh "Diaoyuan Dialogue" commenced with an opening speech by Yin Donggou, Secretary of the Jizhou District Committee. In his address, Yin expressed hope that guests and scholars would frequently visit Jizhou and Diaoyuan to share wonderful moments and discuss rural revitalization. "With nostalgia in mind, we seek the roots of culture in rural revitalization. With innovation as our wings, we activate the source of culture through cultural tourism integration. With dialogue as our medium, we showcase the soul of culture through the collision of ideas."
Transitioning from attracting visitors to retaining them, how can cultural IP become a sustainable engine for rural cultural tourism? Shen Fan, the leader of Qifu Cultural Innovation and an expert in cultural tourism from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, highlighted a three-layer penetration model: "symbolic penetration, scene penetration, and ecological penetration" to transform cultural extraction into monetized creative products.
Design is not only an expression of aesthetics but also a driving force for rural revitalization. Kong Wanqiang, founder of Tuowu Cultural Innovation, showcased how cultural products can take root, develop, transform, and continuously be recognized by young people through local culture. He particularly highlighted how elements from Diaoyuan’s camphor trees and the Fengfei Twelve Flower Gods IP were used to create a series of culturally rich and youth-friendly products.
Li Yichong, chief planner and director of the Chinese Village Basketball Association, shared his core insights through a cultural creative case study on "folk basketball events": the essence of national trends is not "retro," but rather the reconstruction of local cultural genes in modern contexts, with both cultural and economic values rising in a dual spiral. "The essence of national trends is to reconcile millennia of civilization with contemporary life. When oiled paper umbrellas become trendy symbols for young people, and the cheers of folk basketball resonate in the valleys, we witness not only the revitalization of the countryside but also the flourishing of a nation's cultural ethos in the fields!"
Copper is a vessel of Chinese civilization and an art form in modern life. Zhang Chenyang, the innovative marketing director of Zhu Bingren Copper, explored how rural areas can rejuvenate through intangible cultural heritage craftsmanship in the Let Copper Come Home project. He proposed transforming traditional culture into a modern artistic language, presenting copper as “tangible culture.”
At this Diaoyuan dialogue, in addition to domestic cultural tourism brands, there were also international case studies from South Korea and Japan empowering rural areas. Xu Xiuzhen, representing GT Partners from South Korea, demonstrated how rural areas can leverage technology (GT new materials) to enhance agriculture and create immune spaces, enriching the lifestyles and production potentials of villagers. He mentioned that Diaoyuan has already embraced a "rural taste, international style," and GT Immunity Workshop has officially opened in Diaoyuan Ancient Village.
Wei Gengyu, the international general manager of Hoshino Resorts in East China, introduced the collaboration with Diaoyuan Ancient Village through their brand, the ZhenX Yuzu-themed hotel. He also shared how Japanese resort hotel brands use hotels as a center to combine seasonal local resources, encouraging surrounding farmers to create commercially viable local cultural products, illustrating a complete consumption chain from hotel use to experiential participation to purchase.
Rural revitalization development is inextricably linked to the two pillars of "people and community." Fang Wen, co-founder of the A’gan Ecological Community, shared insights on how the villagers of Tieniu Village engage in a community lifestyle characterized by "eating together, cleaning, exercising, drinking tea, learning, and growing." This approach enables individual villagers and the community as a whole to grow and empower each other, ensuring that rural development and revitalization adhere to a people-centered philosophy that retains talent and organization.
The dialogue concluded with a thematic presentation by Professor Hu Haibo from Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, titled Activating Cultural Memory: The Innovative Path of Aesthetic Organization in Ancient Villages. Professor Hu emphasized culture as a key to overcoming the challenges of rural revitalization, using Diaoyuan Ancient Village's development model as a case study. He released a series of academic research findings and expressed a willingness to collaborate with various sectors of society in building new villages through the integration of the "three industries" and the synchronization of the "three lives."
Diaoyuan Ancient Village represents the 2.0 phase of the AlorValley brand's evolution and is a significant exploration and upgrade for the AlorValley Cultural and Tourism Corporation in rural revitalization. The village honors its original cultural and natural heritage, including the hometown of Ougong, "China's Most Beautiful Camphor Ancient Village," Luling culture, and Ganjing ancient architecture.
Currently, Diaoyuan Ancient Village encompasses various sectors such as clothing, incense culture, handicrafts, ceramics, meditation, cultural products, printing experiences, baking, academies, and floral art. This millennia-old village is transforming the poetic texture of its cultural legacy into a tangible, sensory lifestyle for both new and old villagers through diverse small shops and cultural creativity.
As bronze instruments echo the sounds of civilization, as national trends create waves in the rice fields, and as technology brings color to ancient walls, the story of rural revitalization in China is emerging from Diaoyuan to the world. The seventh Diaoyuan Dialogue was not only a feast of ideas but also a declaration to the globe: the countryside will be the source of the next golden era of human civilization!
