Rural haven on city's outskirts enriches residents' leisure time

A new community center was opened in Xuemi Village in Jinze Town recently, offering a new leisure option for local villagers.

The Xuemi Village Community Center features readings, parent-child activities and folk culture workshops, satisfying the diversified needs of villagers and enriching their community lives.

The "happy community" is a highlight program of Qingpu District, and efforts are being made to create "safe, harmonious and beautiful homes" for its people.

In Xuemi Village, there is a 350-plus-year-old ginkgo tree bearing the memory of generations.

Thus, ginkgo was introduced into the center's design with its homophones in Chinese symbolizing "perfection" and "happiness." The center has a pleasant environment with different functional areas.

As the majority of the villagers are elderly citizens and children, an activity area for children and an activity room for seniors have been established at the center.

There is a reading room created for children of migrant workers and students of disadvantaged families with reading day activities and small sports games held to enrich the extracurricular life of the village's youth.

The activity room is open free for villagers, and it has become a popular venue for them to have rehearsals, practise tianshange (folk songs sung in the field by farmers), and dalianxiang, a folk dance popular on the outskirts of Shanghai.

Shen Qianhui

You will also find the tradition of "Apo tea" here, where grannies come to sip tea together in the afternoon – a tradition which has been passed down for over 700 years.

"We like the place and attend various activities here," said an elderly villager. "There's a rich diversity of activities, from dance to traditional Chinese opera performance."

Xuemi Village has an enchanting natural rustic scenery, featuring interlaced and dense lakes and rivers, well-arranged farmland and forests.

In recent years, it has taken on a brand new look under the rural construction campaign.

The public facilities in the village have been further improved, and two companies have forged partnerships with the community center, actively contributing to rural revitalization.

The village is also exploring the integration of agriculture and tourism to boost the development of both industries, turning idle resources into the engines of development and prosperity for farmers and the village.

Based on its rich wetland resources, it will develop ecological tourism with water town features.

Sightseeing tourism blending leisure tours and farmers' life experience will be developed in the village, with an aim to build it into a new landmark in Shanghai for vacations.