A statue of a sleeping baby and the photo of a farmer harvesting wheat in the fields of Caijiapo village, Xi'an, Shaanxi province. (PHOTO / XINHUA)

XI'AN — Strolling through her home village of Caijiapo recently, Yu Xiaoqin stumbled across a photo exhibition. It was a pleasant surprise for the 72-year-old farmer, who had never encountered such a show before.

The theme of the photos was the folk arts of Northwest China's Shaanxi province and East China's coastal province of Fujian, including the Qinqiang Opera and the traditional waist drums, both of which Yu was familiar with. There are also pictures of Gaojia Opera and the Hakka earth buildings, which were a novelty to her.

Nestled in the Qinling Mountains, about 50 kilometers from Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi, Caijiapo was once typical of villages in this remote rural area. However, in recent years, it has received an infusion of artistic activity that has transformed the lives of residents.

The village is the venue for the Guanzhong Mangba Arts Festival, the fifth edition of which started on July 8. The monthslong event sees Caijiapo come to life with a range of artistic activities taking place throughout the summer, including a theater festival and exhibitions on themes related to rural life. It is named after the "Mangba" season, which is the period of rest after the summer harvest has been gathered.

"When I was a child, my family was so poor that I didn't attend a single day of school," says Yu.

Recalling life in Caijiapo more than two decades ago, she says the villagers lived a tough and basic existence. They walked on dirt roads, slept on heated earthen beds, and fired up clay ovens for cooking and heating. They worked hard to make ends meet, and had no time to appreciate the arts.

However, since the Mangba festival was first launched in 2018, it has transformed Caijiapo, bringing a range of artistic experiences to the residents, while boosting the local economy through cultural tourism. Visitors enjoy symphonies in wheat fields and attend art exhibitions, taking selfies and spreading the word through social media. They are joined by the many villagers who have embraced the arts, some of whom have become artists in their own right.

Inspiration everywhere

Walking through Caijiapo, Yu can also see dozens of murals, each measuring over 100 square meters and featuring various artistic styles, including surrealism and impressionism. In the paintings she can see traces of Vincent van Gogh and Pablo Picasso, as well as flowers and farmers.

The wheat fields around the village are also dotted with modern artworks, including a tree-shaped windmill titled Flourishing Flowers and a graffiti work called Lost Tower.

The history museum, meanwhile, provides a good source of nostalgia, featuring photographs recording the lives of the villagers. And in the village art museum, there are artworks fashioned from peeled corn cobs and sickles normally used during the wheat harvest.

Yu says her favorite place to go in Caijiapo is the open-air Zhongnan Theater, a semicircular, amphitheater-style facility that was previously a brick kiln. Over the past five years, she has also spent many happy hours watching avant-garde dramas and listening to jazz music and symphony concerts, all for the first time.

"I have liked the arts since I was a child, but I only used to watch Qinqiang Opera and yangko (a folk-style Chinese dance). Now the village often holds various art performances, and I don't miss any of them," she says.

This year, Yu got up onstage and sang a song of her own composition to the rhythm of the kuaiban, bamboo clappers. The lyrics expressed her gratitude to those who brought this burst of creativity to the village: "Art academy teachers and students come year by year. Each farmer smiles with joy that's clear. The baton passes fast, no delay. Successors ensure the luster will stay."

The teachers and students mentioned in Yu's song are among the chief promoters of Caijiapo's transformation.

Tourists watch performances as part of the Guanzhong Mangba Arts Festival at the open-air Zhongnan Theater in Caijiapo. (PHOTO / XINHUA)

Experimental folk

For villager Chen Meng, the first profound encounter between Caijiapo and the arts was in 2018, when the village held the first Mangba festival.

At that time, artists placed tall flagpoles in the wheat fields, on top of which were huge portraits of the owners of the fields. "It symbolized the relationship between the people and the land, while also paying tribute to the vast number of Chinese farmers," says Chen.

According to Cui Kaimin, a teacher from the Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts, the first festival was the result of a social research project conducted in 2018 by teachers and students from the academy's Experimental Arts Department. During the research, they discovered that the village was picturesque, but had been "hollowed out" by migration. Many people of working age had left in search of work, leaving behind mostly elderly people and children.

"When the young students arrived in the village, many elderly people invited them to their homes for dinner, hoping to chat with them and encounter something new," Cui recalls.

In conversations with the villagers, the students and teachers spotted a folk custom called the "Mangba meeting", meaning "gathering in the fallow season" in the local dialect. Traditionally, after the annual wheat harvest, farmers on the Guanzhong Plain enjoy a period of leisure, visiting relatives and friends to share steamed buns and fruit, together with stories of their farming experiences.

"Experimental art advocates having a relationship with society and participating in livelihood practices. We decided to use the Mangba meeting to conduct an art experiment in Caijiapo," says Cui.

During the festival's first edition, various activities were held in the wheat fields, including short sketches by the villagers and avant-garde dramas. The teachers and students also crafted artworks from wheat straw and tree branches, turning the village and its fields into art spaces. The event struck a positive chord.

In 2019, local cadres asked the artists a question: "Can this festival be repeated?"

They had every reason to want it to continue, as the first edition had attracted a large number of tourists, providing a new market for the village's agricultural products.

Based on this early success, the village, with a population of nearly 4,000, began a process of systematically transforming itself into a venue for the arts, developing the range of creative events on offer, along with services and facilities for visitors.

Over the years, each edition of the festival has become more diverse, while the facilities and infrastructure have been greatly improved, thanks to the concerted efforts of local authorities and the academy. The facilities now include artistic souvenir shops, homestays, cafes and restaurants, all of which bring in revenue.

Qin Weidong, Party chief of Caijiapo village, says that more than 200 villagers now work in the tourism sector, and its total annual revenue has exceeded 14 million yuan ($1.96 million). During this year's Dragon Boat Festival holiday, which lasted from June 22 to 24, Caijiapo received more than 50,000 tourist visits.

A richer life

Since 2018, the villagers have not only lived a better life, but they have become more involved in creative endeavors. They have gone from knowing little about art, to seeing art integrated into their daily lives, to the extent that the wheat harvest itself has become part of a broader creative endeavor.

Some villagers have even become artists in their own right. Han Yangquan, a villager from Caijiapo, has learned to use cameras and take pictures, putting on a photo exhibition outside his home. "You can discover the beauty of life in this way, and learn to express the emotions in your heart," says Han.

Liu Xinyuan, another villager, likes planting flowers and plants. During the ongoing festival, together with the academy's teachers, students and tourists, she built a "symbiotic botanical garden" in front of her house, with old items she collected from other villagers.

"Previously, I thought that only flowerpots could be used to grow flowers, but in the eyes of the artists, old benches and even saddles can be used for that purpose," says Liu. "Art hasn't just turned Caijiapo into a destination for social-media celebrities. More importantly, it constantly impacts and subverts our original notions."

By embracing the arts, Caijiapo has undergone a profound transformation, both economically and socially. Those changes have also injected new vitality into the surrounding villages. Inspired by Caijiapo's example, they have launched tourist-friendly projects of their own.

Xiazhuang village, for example, has built a demonstration village for the inheritance of new folk arts. Liyukou village, meanwhile, has built a "reception hall" to create a cultural industry cluster of rural manufacturers. All of these efforts have attracted visitors and boosted business activity.

Song Naihong, 45, a villager from Liyukou, used to run a noodle restaurant. Last year, when the Liyukou-based Two Tree Coffee began recruiting, Song signed up and learned to use computers and make coffee.

Today, she is a master barista, proficient in latte art. "As the job requires me to keep learning and encountering new things, I feel that my life is really fulfilling," says Song.