Director's Notes丨Huamao Village: A Small Village in Northern Guizhou Tao Yun Youran

Introduction to the Director

Lv Yan

Representative works: "Jiaxing - The Red Ship Sails From Here" and "Tianshui Ancient City - The Hometown of Emperor Xi" "Tian" and so on.

Zhou Xiaoxiao

Representative works: "Zunyi - the turning point of the revolution, the city of eternal loyalty", "Huawu Village - melodious Miao songs under the cliff", etc.

Tao Yun Youran, a small village in northern Guizhou

When we first arrived in Huamao Village, an april snow put a snow-white coat on the land of northern Guizhou in early spring. The crystal snow is spread on the green tiles, falls on the green vegetable garden, and piles on the branches that have just revealed their spring buds, giving the village a beautiful snow scene different from that in the north. According to the elder brother in the village, such heavy snow does not often fall in the area, so the men, women, and children in the village came out to enjoy the snow scene with excited expressions on their faces, and the scene was very lively. But soon, after noon, the sun came out, and the village shed its white coat. Everything seemed to be reborn, and spring was everywhere. This allowed us to truly experience the weather in Guizhou, and we could see four seasons in one day.

Walking into the village entrance, you will see a quaint pottery culture street. At first we thought that this was just like many landscape streets created by rural tourism, just a street for entertainment and leisure. However, as we gradually understood the history of the development of this village, we realized that the rise and fall of the village and its journey were all related to the pottery industry. closely related.

Uncle Liu in the village said that almost everyone in this village can make pottery. This seemingly simple craft actually requires a lot of effort, which gave us a deeper understanding of the village’s history and pottery culture. Strong interest. What is the connection between this village and the pottery industry?

Following this clue, we visited Cao Ping, a retired pottery craftsman in the village. Uncle Cao is over sixty years old, but he is still skilled and calm in making pottery. During the chat, we learned that the pottery craftsmanship in the village was brought to Huamao Village from Sichuan by Cao Ping’s grandfather, Cao Tinghai, more than 130 years ago. Huamao Village has a natural advantage in pottery making. The soil under its feet is all high-quality pottery clay, and there are various red pottery and white clays around. These good materials for making pottery have provided the village with an opportunity to develop the pottery making industry.

Before that, people in the village relied on one-third of their own land to grow some food. Since Cao Tinghai opened the first pottery workshop in Huamao Village, the pottery industry began to bring prosperity to the villagers. Come for side income. Slowly, Huamao Village became a place where novel pottery could be made. Since Zunyi, Guizhou Province was rich in famous wines, Huamao Village also became one of the important producing areas of wine vessels.

Cao Ping told us that the process requirements for making wine bottles are actually more stringent, especially the calcination process. The temperature must be controlled at 1,300 degrees to ensure that the clay is hard enough and will not seep. leak. However, in history, some apprentices delayed the firing of wine bottles due to bad habits such as alcoholism, resulting in defective products.

We are inspired by this story that all aspects must work together to succeed. But the story does not end here. What happened next allows us to truly touch the cultural roots of the development of this village. As the leader at the time, Cao Tinghai discovered that the locals had bad habits such as playing cards, smoking, and drinking, so he spent his own money to build the first stage in the village, bought many gongs and drums, and taught everyone how to sing opera. In this way, we can slowly help everyone get rid of bad habits and form a good rural civilization. This seemingly simple action may be the original way of village governance.

The second important node in the development of the village was the severe impact of the ceramic industry on industrial products in the 1990s. After that, the village gradually fell into depression. In the next twenty or thirty years, the village faced the problem of how to transform and how to get out of the quagmire of poverty. Around 2014, with the support of poverty alleviation policies, the government invested manpower, material resources, and funds to conduct unified planning for villages, and village development ushered in an important turning point.

My mother opened a pottery studio in the Pottery Culture Street and witnessed the transformation of the village's destiny. Recalling the scene of selling clay pots in the past, the always gentle-spoken elder brother Mu Xiancai suddenly became excited. In the past, the environment in the village was poor and the roads were difficult to navigate, so my mother had to drive the pots she had made to the county town to sell them. Whether she could sell them or not, 40% of the pots were wasted on the bumpy journey. The family can only maintain their basic expenses by selling clay pots. Now, spacious roads run through the entire village, and more and more tourists come to visit. My mother and the villagers who have re-entered the pottery business in the village can live a good life without leaving the village at all.

The third story is about the development of agriculture in the village. The foundation of village development has always been agriculture. Huamao Village promotes agricultural transformation in the form of village collective cooperatives. Unlike other cooperatives that employ villagers as employees, the cooperative in Huamao Village puts the land transferred by villagers into unified management. The village collective guarantees agricultural supplies and technology, and the villagers rent greenhouses for farming.

What to plant, how to plant, how to control, what fertilizer to apply, when to transplant, when to remove pests, etc., are all planned and managed by the cooperative. As long as the villagers work hard, they can achieve a high yield. Finally, the cooperative will also purchase the crops grown by the villagers. In this way, both the agricultural resources and production efficiency of the village have been greatly improved. This production method has allowed the village collective to increase its income by more than 4 million yuan in just a few years.

It was early spring when we were shooting, and the weather was not too warm, but the village tourism was already gaining momentum, and tourists came to check in from time to time. We walked along the neat village paths. The wind was sunny and the countryside was fresh. Villagers were repairing bonsai and doing crafts in their small courtyards. The houses were bright and the courtyards were spacious. Everyone couldn't help but sigh, isn't this the pastoral life that many people imagine.

When the production of this program was about to end, I read the article "Where Are the Magic Villages" and found that the villages we photographed were all "showing their unique talents" on the road to rural revitalization, but when you really go When I get close to it, I find that it doesn't need to be magical. It's enough to satisfy our imagination of pastoral life.

Editor | Li Yuting