Poet finds inspiration in artists’ village
New focus raises living standards and improves cultural offerings
Yan Xi, a poet from Beijing, said there are two places a person should go in their lives: “One is Paris, a city of romance, another is Hongjiang, a primitive place where time has not begun.”
Located in deep mountains, Hongjiang village in Qiannan Bouyei and Miao autonomous prefecture, in Guizhou province, is set in pastoral surroundings where hundreds of traditional Bouyei-ethnic style buildings are surrounded by bushy forests, rolling hills and farmland.
Yan said the serene, isolated village helps his writing. “Immersed in mountains and starlight, and strolling along the terraces, inspiration flows naturally, which brings me to a new creative realm,” he said.
As part of a local cultural and poverty-reduction program, Yan bought a deserted house and renovated it, creating a personal library filled with romantic poetry, historical documents and reviews from home and abroad that is open to anyone interested in visiting.
Once desolate and poor, most of Hongjiang’s young migrated to big cities where there are more job opportunities, leaving behind the elderly, children, dogs, ducks and empty houses. In 2016, local authorities decided to turn Hongjiang into an art village by encouraging residents to sell unused houses to artists as part of efforts to reduce poverty, develop cultural tourism and promote rural vitalization.
So far 108 painters, poets, sculptors, scriptwriters, film directors, musicians from around the country have bought about 100 houses and renovated them. There are now art galleries, music and painting workshops, and classrooms for poetry and pottery. “It’s a win-win,” said Zeng Hongbo, Party secretary of Hongjiang. “Artists have a quiet, close-tonature space for creation and the incomes of villagers increase by selling houses and working to refurbish them. There is also more culture and entertainment in the village to enrich their lives.”
Liu Songtian, a 57-year-old sculptor and music enthusiast from Beijing, now spends half his life in his two-story brick house in Hongjiang. “Living in the village gives me more space to relax and think, and inspires me artistically,” he said.
While wandering around, he noticed that as most farmwork is now mechanized, old farm tools are no longer used. For example, villagers now use rice buckets as flower pots, tables or bath buckets at home.
Liu then discovered that the buckets are made of platan wood — a material commonly used to make the pipa, a Chinese lute with four strings, and the guzheng, a Chinese zither. The wood is known for its acoustic quality, so he came up with the idea of transforming the old tools into musical instruments.
He collected as many as he could, and has even turned abandoned boats and windmills into instruments.
The program also benefits villagers. So far, old houses have been sold to artists for more than 2.8 million yuan ($430,000) and the income of the house renovation team now tops 2 million yuan annually.
Besides workshops, an art communication center, a village history museum, and a children’s art educational center have also been built. The rural artistic village brand attracts tourists and about 260 residents now have jobs in catering, accommodations, house restoration and other cultural services, as a result.
Wei Weiyi, 43, was the first to sell his house to an artist in 2016. The property, now a homestay, sold for about 10,000 yuan. Wei, who worked in construction outside the village for more than 10 years, decided to return to earn money by helping buyers repair their new houses.
While chatting with a ceramicist one day, Wei showed interest in the work. In 2018 and 2019, he studied ceramics at a college in Guiyang, provincial capital of Guizhou, which was arranged by the village government. Together with other artists, he invested 50,000 yuan of his own money to open a ceramics workshop in the village to teach villagers and tourists to make pottery.
He also turned some rooms in his house into a bed-and-breakfast, with sheets and duvets made from batik, a traditional dyeing technique that is especially popular in southern China and Southeast Asia.
He began to make about 40,000 yuan a year, more than double his earnings at his former job. “Artists helped raise recognition of the village and brought more possibilities for development. The future of Hongjiang will be different, as will our next generation,” he said.
The villagers’ appreciation for art is changing, too. Liu said he is happy that some are beginning to add decorations to their houses after helping renovate others. “I always feel welcome here. Though we have different opinions on aesthetics, we learn from each other.”
He has organized numerous art exhibitions, forums and parties, as well as pottery and sculpture classes at his house.
Li Huixi and Xu Tao founded a 60-member children’s soccer team. They also organized art lessons, and some of the creations were shown on the Disney store’s big screen in New York’s Times Square during a promotion for China’s National Day last year. “The purpose was to build confidence and allow people outside the mountains to see their work,” Li said.
Yan, meanwhile, has been nicknamed the “grandpa with white whiskers” by village children. He has run two poetry workshops for students and said he plans to organize a literature competition at the house, to which international poets will be invited.
He would like to teach poetry more regularly, if there were enough students. He has become part of village life over the years.