"The distant mountains are vast, the river nearby is melodious, with households scattered at the foot of rolling hills, Heshun is far better than Suzhou and Hangzhou."

- A eulogy by Mr. Li Genyuan, a senior statesman of the Republic of China

On January 16, 2021, Mr. Xu Jun, Executive Director of Zhonghua Book Company, was invited to CCTV's "Voice" program to tell the backstory about the punctuated text of "Twenty-Four Histories", which has been written for many years. "Heshun Library", a rural library hidden on the border of the motherland, also stepped on the stage of this episode. Heshun - a concealed town rated as No.1 of the top ten charming towns in China and recommended by "Chinese National Geography", "Traveler" and other media as one of "the 50 places to go in life", also came into public sight again. Another reason for Heshun to frequently become a hot search is that in 2018, Heshun Ancient Town Scenic Area quietly started to construct a national 5A tourist attraction. In November of 2020, it successfully passed the landscape quality assessment by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and was included in the national creation list of 5A tourist attractions.

Heshun Ancient Town, located in Tengchong, Baoshan, Yunnan, is the only way to take for the ancient "Land Silk Road" in Sichuan, Yunnan, Myanmar and Southern India, where relatively complete ancient buildings of the Ming and Qing Dynasties are preserved. For more than 600 years, the ancestors of Heshun have formed the architectural culture, ancestral hall culture, folk culture and overseas Chinese culture, etc. that are unique in Heshun in the process of blending with the border culture, South Asian culture and western culture. The abundant & unique human resources and the idyllic & pastoral ecological environment endow Heshun with special glamour and become the resource advantages for Heshun to develop the tourism and cultural industry.

Impression

 "Green mountains, delicious food, flowing water in villages and fertile soil"

As early as 2005, in the charming town selection campaign organized by CCTV, Heshun with its unique charm, stood out among over 180 participating towns from all over China, was awarded with the title of "China's Top Ten Charming Town" after several rounds of voting by 29 national experts, and won the only first prize.

The award speech given to Heshun by the CCTV Expert Committee reads as follows: "the 600-year history gave birth to the ancient town at the extreme border, which is the pearl of the Silk Road with cultures from three continental plates meeting here. Although the Town is small, it has the largest rural library in China. Its population is small, but most of them live all over the world. It is the hometown for a generation of philosophers and the King of Jade. Small bridges and flowing water here have a style of regions south of the Yangtze River, but volcanic hot springs are subtropical scenery. Furthermore, moon-viewing platforms, deep and serene lanes, laundry booths, white wall & black tiles, rice waves and white gulls represent harmony and smoothness. Heshun, a small town in Western Yunnan, fully enjoys favorable climatic, geographical and human conditions".

Heshun has become famous overnight after won the title of "China's Top Ten Charming Town". It has been widely known for various special honors - the famous historical and cultural town, national town with a beautiful environment, national cultural industry demonstration base, national 4A tourist attraction, national advanced tourism collective, the first batch of beautiful and livable demonstration towns in China, the third batch of traditional Chinese architectural and cultural tourism destinations, forest cultural town, the first cultural tourism integration demonstration scenic spot in Yunnan, etc. ... In September, 2019, Heshun Ancient Town was named the "characteristic town of Yunnan" by the People's Government of Yunnan Province.

 "Heshun Ancient Town is famous for getting rich by doing business, but the vulgarity of marketplace is faint. Countryside and humanity complement each other. Upon the first arrival at Heshun, time seems to be frozen in the agrarian age hundred years ago. The plain and tranquil atmosphere abounds everywhere, which is just a pure land desired by many people trying to escape the crowds", commented by Zhang Qiang coming from Jinchang, Gansu on Heshun.

Yesterday

"Strengthen points of weakness, attach importance to ecology, make models and develop the Heshun mode"

Up to now, Heshun has been "awarded" with various honors. However, these honors are the outcome of continuous "hard working" by people living in this piece of land. In the past 20 years, relying on the unique tourism resources, Heshun Ancient Town Scenic Area has summarized and practiced the "Heshun Mode" of "protecting style and features, representing cultures, supporting moderately and developing harmoniously", which promotes Heshun's leap-forward development from a traditional agricultural town to a famous tourist town.

After an investigation and study of over 80,000 square meters of ancient buildings in Heshun, Heshun Ancient Town has created electronic files on the history, present situation and architectural features of ancient buildings, raised a fund to repair or restore some ancient buildings on the basis of full demonstration and repeated design; organized experts to investigate and label famous wood and ancient trees, etc. for conservation; practiced the development concept of "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets", scientifically and comprehensively handled the relationship between environmental protection and enterprise development, and carried out a series of water environment governance and landscape improvement and reconstruction projects for the Yeya Lake, the Xianhe River and the Yuzhou Pavilion in the ancient town, with a total investment of over RMB 100 million. Based on water environment governance, the "Impression over Water" Project has been created with the emphasis on ecological protection, so that tourists can experience the idyllic and humanistic scenes of "farming, lotus viewing, bird watching and boating". Making "the protection of style and features" become a practical action that everyone in the ancient town personally practices.

Culture is the soul of tourism, whilst tourism is the carrier of culture. Tourism without culture is plain. Heshun has a well-established history. It has given birth to a large number of famous masters and enjoyed profound cultural deposits. How to make the scenic area a model integrating culture and tourism?

Heshun Ancient Town has taken a different approach. First, it has invested in the new Yunnan-Myanmar Anti-Japanese War Museum by making use of Tengchong's rich history of the Anti-Japanese War. This is also the first museum in China that is constructed with private investments to reflect the history of the Anti-Japanese War in Yunnan and Myanmar (in August, 2012, all the exhibits in the Yunnan-Myanmar Anti-Japanese War Museum were moved to the Memorial for Anti-Japanese War in Western Yunnan). Heshun Ancient Town has also collected and reorganized the "four harmonies and three smoothnesses" feathered in Heshun's architectural culture, and demonstrated it through the Wanlouzi Folk House Museum; collected the Heshun ancestral hall culture. In 2008, the Big Horse Gang Museum was constructed. Through more than 3,000 cultural relics and nearly 100 old photos, more and more people learnt about the history of the Southwest Silk Road and the origin of the "Belt and Road Initiative". Intangible cultural heritages such as ancient papermaking, Shenma art and shadow play art were performed in Heshun's lanes. The Ai Siqi Memorial Hall was redecorated to 2018 to make Ai Siqi's former residence a red classic scenic spot for patriotic education. In the same year, Heshun Ancient Town actively responded to President Xi Jinping's call to advocate a good family style, reorganized and refined the Heshun family style culture, and constructed the Heshun Family Style Culture Corridor, which made it a classroom for party organizations at all levels to conduct on-site teaching of "remaining true to our original aspiration and keeping our mission firmly in mind", thus enriching the connotation of "cultural Heshun" from the outside to the inside.

It is another successful attempt of Heshun Ancient Town to follow the principle of moderate support and construct related supporting facilities with local characteristics. Heshun Family Restaurant was the library of Zhang Muxin, Tengchong's great merchant and founder of Fudian Bank (Hongkong Branch). Commander-in-chief Mansion Inn was the old house of Zhang Songlin, Commander-in-chief of Tengyue in the late Qing Dynasty. The relocation and conservation of these old houses not only endows the commercial facilities with profound cultural connotations, but also enables the inheritance and development of the local "Tengyue culture".

Heshun Brilliant Resort & SPA Hotel is also a cultural landscape worth mentioning. It is located in the west of the ancient town, with Tengchong's high-quality volcanic hot spring resources. It absorbs the volcanic pastoral scenery and blends into the quiet life scenes of the town without a feeling of strangeness. It has been selected as a "Small Luxury Hotel in the World (SLH)" and rated as a "Top Resort Hotel in China". From October 9 to October 10, 2020, Heshun Brilliant Resort & SPA Hotel successfully organized the foreign affairs activity hosted by Mr. Wang Yi, Minister of Foreign Affairs there, which was highly praised and affirmed.

To construct the Heshun Ancient Town Tourism Project with a focus on culture, maximize the profits of local public while promoting cultural heritage conservation by developing tourism projects and demonstrate "harmonious development", is what Brilliant Group - the major enterprise engaged in Heshun Ancient Town Scenic Area development has been doing. The Enterprise has been widely benefitting Heshun people by means of public welfare and charity. It has invested a lot of money in subsidizing public facilities such as to construct bridges and roads, and embed cables and wires for power, communication, cable TV and military purposes; invested in condolence to poverty-stricken households, old CPC members, poverty-stricken students and seriously ill households in financial or material difficulties; donated to the construction of Brilliant Hope School; set up scholarships, faculty fellowships, special awards for moral education, etc. in Yiqun Middle School, Since 2007, it has paid the personal contribution to the New Rural Co-operative Medical System for more than 7,000 residents in agricultural registered permanent residence in the ancient town. It set up the kindergarten education fund in 2010 and the Brilliant Heshun pension fund in 2011. The Enterprise has made an average annual contribution in public welfare and charity of over RMB 3 million, which enables the residents of Heshun Ancient Town to "provide education for the young, medical care for the sick, support for the elder and help the needy".

The Heshun mode combines the culture & tourism industry with rural revitalization and poverty alleviation, and properly handles the relationship between conservation and development, the relationship between current interests and long-term interests, the relationship between enterprises and indigenous residents, the relationship between tourism and culture, as well as the relationship between enterprises, party committees and governments in the development of the ancient town. The development mode of Heshun Ancient Town Scenic Area was rated as one of "Top 100 Experience in Governance Innovation of China" by People's Daily and People's Tribune.

Today

"Optimize services, improve levels, fully speed up and construct a 5A scenic attraction"

All the people who love the hot land of Heshun are full of hope and expectations for constructing Heshun Ancient Town into a 5A scenic attraction. After all, there are too many "worthwhile" stories in the hot land of Heshun.

"After staying in Heshun for a long time, you will make a more accurate footnote to the meaning of 'with neither severe cold in winter nor intense heat in summer, and just like spring all year round'. Every piece of pure land here is the poetic and pictorial splendor in your imagination. The pastoral peace described in the verses "while picking asters’ neath the Eastern fence, my gaze upon the Southern mountain rests; the mountain views are good by day or night, the birds come flying homeward to their nests" exists here, so does the tranquility and leisure described in the verses "within the world of men I make my home, yet din of house and carriage there is none", says Zhang Qiang. 

Heshun in your eyes is so tranquil and you may think it keeps such a low profile that it can be forgot in a flash. As matter of fact, what some people don't know is that there are countless treasures hidden in this "concealed town": Heshun Library, a important heritage site under state protection has a long history and a large collection of books, which is known as "No.1 in Chinese villages"; the former residence of Ai Siqi (philosophical adviser of Comrade Mao Zedong), which has won the tile of "provincial key cultural relic unit under state protection" and other honors; the Heshun Wenchang Palace, which records the glory of 8 provincial graduates and 403 scholars in Heshun; there are more than 100 houses of the Qing Dynasty, which represents a combination of oriental and occidental elements in architecture, with not only the grace of the Huizhou architecture but also the brightness of the western architecture, thus being known as the living fossil of ancient Chinese architecture; with a population is more than 6,000, the ancient town is a famous hometown of overseas Chinese in Yunnan, with over 12,000 Heshun people living overseas. Moreover, it used to be a strategic town for horse caravans and the must pass through for the ancient "Southwest Silk Road", with various foreign cultures colliding, integrating and complementing each other here...

In 2018, Heshun started its journey to construct a national 5A tourist attraction, trying to realize another leap of Heshun with the natural resource endowment of the ancient town.

In April of 2019, the idea of "Great Western Yunnan Tourism Loop Line" was proposed for Yunan, intending to plan, construct and operate the abundant tourism resources in Western Yunnan, construct the "Deqin - Shangri - La-Lijiang - Dali - Baoshan - Ruili - Tengchong - Lushui - Gongshan - Deqin" Great Western Yunnan Tourism Loop Line, which was the turning point of a new round of transformation and upgrading of cultural tourism in Yunnan. As a part of the Great Western Yunnan Tourism Loop Line, this opportunity comes once in a blue moon in the process of constructing a 5A tourist attraction.

Compared with 4A tourist attractions, a national 5A tourist attraction further highlights the resource uniqueness, the characteristics and culture and the people-oriented management of scenic areas. Focusing on the requirements of the above standards, in 2018, Heshun Ancient Town started the work of constructing a national 5A tourist attraction. The related work was then accelerated immediately, and a number of key projects were quickly implemented. As Mr. Cheng Dejun, Secretary of Municipal Party Committee of Tengchong, emphasized more than once, "From 4A to 5A, it is a necessary course to realize the leap of Tengchong's tourism quality. Heshun Ancient Town will closely focus on constructing a national 5A tourist attraction, increase investment, strengthen management and optimize services, so as to promote improvement and integration through construction, thus make 5A construction a great power for the high-quality development of the ancient town".

To meet the requirements of constructing a 5A tourist attraction, Heshun Ancient Town Scenic Area has implemented a project separating pedestrian and vehicular circulation, set up 8 check points in the core sightseeing districts. Tourist vehicles and villagers' vehicles for production and domestic purposes will go their separate ways to keep the traffic in order. There are 7 parking lots in the whole scenic area, with a total of 1,043 parking spaces. The roads are clear and the traffic is in good order. The newly-constructed tourist center has complete tourist service facilities. It provides consultation, ticket sales, guide for tours in the scenic area, tour routes, guide for each functional zones, electronic touch screens, publicity materials, tourist relaxation facilities, sanitary facilities, tour guide service explanation service, bulletin boards, activity bulletin boards for the scenic area, etc., and can provide ticket service, explanation service, tourist consultation and complaint service for tourists timely. There are 17 tourist toilets and 231 toilet cubicles in the scenic area, including 6 unisex toilets. Heshun Ancient Town Scenic Area has redesigned, fabricated and installed more than 700 signs as per the 5A standard to guarantee that the signs are clear and the instructions are accurate, and on the basis of unified standards, fully demonstrate its cultural connotation. Heshun Ancient Town Scenic Area has simultaneously upgraded the three major systems of operation management, smart scenic area and tourist services. Consequently, it has remarkably improved its "soft power", able to provide more quality and accurate services to tourists. For upgrading the operation system, starting from such four aspects as daily management, cultural context, marketing & promotion, and service guarantee, Heshun Ancient Town Scenic Area has unified its working standards, external image, cultural presentation, tour guide presentation , ticketing system, scenic spot logos and transportation system, and fundamentally realized the integrated operation system.  With the goal of constructing a first-class smart scenic area, it has consolidated the demands of tourists and management, constructed intelligent systems such as for safety-specific emergency response and smart fire fighting, improved the QR code explanation function, supplemented and improved the smart route explanation system; realized smart service, smart management and smart operation, etc.; upgraded the tourist service system to make tourists feel at home; designed boutique tour routes such as parent-child tours and study tours, etc.; centralized superior resources to form a professional tour guide team; improved the service level of all staff, and constantly enhanced tourists' sense of acquisition and satisfaction.

To make Heshun Ancient Town more attractive, Heshun Ancient Town Scenic Area has newly launched "Caravan Post Office" and "Impression over Water" with a deep sense of history. "Caravan Post Office" is a new cultural and creative product full of "postal" flavor formed through the transnational postal service and the electronic era, which allows visitors to experience the charm of "postal" culture, while "Impression over Water" has pavilions, islands and marketplaces, with a number of punch-in points scattered. When boating on the lake, tourists can "do some farming work, enjoy lotus and watch birds". Pastoral delight in the wild and humanistic scenes complement each other, making tourists shuttling back and forth linger on. In addition, "Heshun Show" is available to demonstrate different aspects of the Heshun culture: rough and heroic singers from the Lisu nationality, "Caravan Leader Band"... Each ingenious cultural tourism project presents the charm of integrated tourism resources in Heshun Ancient Town Scenic Area.

The construction and management standards for 5A scenic areas pay more attention to humanization and details than those for 4A scenic areas, and can better reflect the general psychological needs of tourists for scenic areas, highlight their focus on tourists and emphasize being people-oriented". Mr. Chen Aixing, Director of Municipal Tourism Bureau of Tengchong says, "Therefore, Heshun Ancient Town's effort to construct a 5A scenic area actually represents that Tengchong people want to provide a higher quality tourism supply for visitors from all places, so that Heshun Ancient Town will have stronger market attraction, competitiveness and appeal in the future."

To the relief of all those who love Tengchong and Heshun Ancient Town, in November of 2020, Heshun Ancient Town Scenic Area successfully passed the landscape quality assessment by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and was included in the national creation list of 5A tourist attractions.

There is a flavor called Heshun, which is as warm as jade, and as good as water. In the ancient architectural complex surrounded by volcanic geothermal fields, the bell of merchants and caravan echoes, the literary atmosphere of farming-reading families overflows, spreading the ideas of popular philosophy and leaving fervent and impassioned songs!

over 380 years ago, Xu Xiake came to Tengchong and Heshun, and expressed a feeling that "the flourishing scenes in the town cannot be seen in Western Yunan". This feeling has also fascinated generations for hundreds of years. Today, with the improvement and upgrading during the five-year construction, Heshun Ancient Town full of brand-new charm now presents itself in the eyes of the world with a brand-new look.

Source: Tengchong News Network