A prairie fire of culture in the countryside
- Details
- Category: Ningbo District
- Published: Thursday, 28 February 2013 07:01
-A sketch of the cultural program for the rural areas of Ningbo
On October 16, the performance of the achievements of the 4th Ningbo Cultural Program for the Countryside", a program hosted by the Publicity Department of Ningbo Municipal Party Committee, Ningbo Wenming Office and Ningbo Municipal Press and Publication Administration, was made on the Dapengshan Square in Longshan Town of Cixi City. The fantastic performance was made by 13 troupes from the countryside of Ningbo. This is a result of the "cultural popularity program", a program that Ningbo started since 2008. In the past four years, the city has organized over 3,000 trainings classes of the grass-roots teams of cultural and sports activities and over 1,600 performances. This enriches the cultural life of the population in the countryside and raises the cultural awareness of the people in the rural areas.
Beilun District: "Stars of the Neighbors"
Early in the evening on September 26, the square of Xinmian Village was crowded with people from the village and the neighboring villages. Here on the square was going on the Kala OK contest of Good Voice of Xinmian, a village in Xiaogang Community of Beilun District. 17 contestants from the village, enterprises and schools in the village were on stage one by one. The first singer was Xie Wenming, a teacher of the primary school. The songs "Wishes for a Long Life", "Picking the Stars", "A Song for the Moon", "Love Bean" and so on were received with waves of applause from the judges and audiences. "He is quite aged but his voice is so amazing!", this is the praise of the audience for Mr. Zhao Bingguo for his song "Qinghai-Tibet Plateau". Finally, Awards were granted to the winners.
"Xinmian Good Voice" is a representative of the cultural activities that became popular in the countryside since Beilun started the "Star of the Neighbors" program.
"Stars of the Neighbors" is a program of mass cultural activities that Beilun District launched in 2008. This program is funded by the government, aiming to support the recreational and entertainment performance troupes of the local people. So far, Beilun District has quite a number of spare-time artistic performance troupes with distinct features, like Haichen Artistic Troupe, Xiyanghong Artistic Troupe, Minzuzhihua Performance Troupe, Meishan Dragon Dance Team, and Chunxiao Performance Troupe. These troupes are very active on the stages in the countryside and have received much appraisal from the local people.
Reportedly, at present Beilun District has over 300 spare-time artistic performance troupes with over 600 backbone performers. There are over 3,000 people that participate in rehearsals and performances. There quite a number of towns and villages famous for cultural activities and each administrative village has at least one spare-time artistic troupe. Every year, thousands upon thousands of audiences get entertained. Beilun District has made a plan for the cultural development which sets up a fund of 30 million yuan for the cultural activities and the updating of cultural facilities.
Yuyao City: "Family Cultural Center within 5-minutes Walk"
At the home of Yu Qingshou, a villager in Shaojia Village, Linshan Town, Yuyao, there is a little house that was built long ago. On the house is a plate with the words "Family Cultural Center". In the house is a computer, some newspapers and several hundred books. There is a chess table, around which are four players.
Yu Qingshou's house is one of the "family cultural centers" in the rural areas of Yuyao City.
Although every administrative village has a cultural center in the central village, it is not very convenient for the villagers living in remote little villages. As a solution, some households that are enthusiastic for public cultural activities are selected. A room or two are cleared as space for cultural activities. These households are subsidized by the towns for them to buy some cultural equipment. Usually, A family cultural center can serve tens or even hundreds of neighboring households and the people can get in cultural activities close at their homes.
In 2007 Yuyao launched the program for the family cultural center. So far there are 1,100 such "family cultural centers". The cultural activities by the families often attract tens of families in the village and the neighboring villages. The family cultural center of Xia Cainan, in Hanxia Village of Hangjiabu Town, would prepare shows or parties on chief festivals, which attract villagers from the villages around.
The family cultural centers offer cultural services to the natural villages for the convenience of the farmers, who can enjoy cultural services within a five-minute walk. Meanwhile, the cultural activities have resulted in a large number of performance troupes of farmers. At present, , every village in Yuyao has one or two performance troupes. They often visit each other and as a result the villagers can enjoy the performances by various troupes.
Cixi: Village Cultural Palaces
The village cultural palace at Daqishan Village of Guanhaiwei Town of Cixi is bustling, over 10 women are rehearsing and several ole people are chatting over the tea. Daqishan Village is a relatively remote village in Cixi. In the past, to have some entertainment, the villagers had to walk several kilometers to Shiqiao Town or Guanhaiwei Town. Today, they have this village cultural palace and it becomes much more convenient for them.
Every village in Cixi has such a village cultural palace.
To promote the village cultural palaces, from 2000 on, Cixi City released a series of documents including "Opinions on the Implement of Construction of Village Cultural Centers", which specifies a whole set of measures for the construction, acceptance and financial support. Every year, the city organizes 6 to 8 training classes of the backbone personnel of cultural activities in the countryside.
Besides the government's support, the city encourages social factors to participate in the construction of the village cultural palaces. Many private enterprises now are donating to cultural activities. 。So far, over 2,000 private enterprises have given their support in various easy to the cultural undertaking in the countryside, with their donation amounting to over 50 million yuan. Lianxing Village in Zonghan Community has set up a cultural fund, the first of the kind in Zhejiang, thanks to the great support by 38 enterprises.
So far, Cixi has over 1,200 cultural and sports teams, with over 20,000 backbone artistic performers. All the 274 villages have cultural palaces. Every village has its own performance team with distinct features: the folk talk show in Sanbei, the dragon dance in Changsheng Village, the Shaoxing Opera in Zhangqi, and Yaoju Opera in Kandun, the Wind Instrument Band in Zhendong and the Waist Drum Dance in Ximenwai Village.
The village cultural palace program has been popularized in Ningbo. At present 95% of the villages in Ningbo have village cultural palaces. This is a new way for the popularity of cultural services in the countryside ，that meets the spiritual and cultural demands of people.
Source: Yang Jingya, Yu Gengxue,
