Rural Growth around Scenic Mount Mogan

Mount Mogan, situated in Deqing County just to the north of Hangzhou, is celebrated mainly for its bamboo forest mountain attractions. It was in the early 20th century that the mountain area grew into a summer resort for Shanghai-based foreign professionals. About 200 kilometers southwest of Shanghai and about 60 kilometers northeast of Hangzhou, the mountain retreat has been a tourism attraction since then. In recent years, the rural area at the foot of the famous tourism destination has seen rapid modern development. A visit to these quiet villages may give people an insight into the fundamental changes taking place across rural Zhejiang since the start of reform and opening up more than 30 years ago.

I recently visited the village of Yuchun (Yu Village), the capital seat of the rural Moganshan Town. I was deeply impressed by what I saw there.

Around the village are many agricultural tourism attractions. Sunshine Ecological Farm is one of the village’s farming businesses which also double as tourism attractions. East of the village proper, Sunshine Ecological Farm is a seedling nursery. Young trees grow robustly in tidy plots. Inside greenhouses are potted ornamental plants. They are moved to the outdoor after a certain period and then they are delivered to markets in Shanghai, Hangzhou and other urban centers in this part of the Yangtze River Delta. The 33-hectare nursery is a high-tech enterprise. Rows of containers for saplings have no soil in them at all. Seedlings absorb nutrients from some media. When asked why the seedlings are not planted in soil, the proprietor explained that the seedlings grown this way are environmentally friendly and clean, and that they can be cultivated year round and easy to transport. The nursery cultivates ornamental potted plants such as Photinia glabra, Ligustrum japonicum Howardii, Teucrium fruitcans, and Viburnum tinus. It is a pure delight to look at them. The spacious greenhouse is like a huge transparent workshop where I saw neither machine-operating workers nor machines. The plants look like silk fabric. Looking up, I could see clouds through the translucent ceiling. A water system sprinkles the seedlings at regular intervals. The proprietor in his 30s said the seven-year-old nursery is a high-tech enterprise with technical support from Zhejiang Forestry College.

The village got its name from Yu Jianwu, an official of the Liang Dynasty (502-557) of the Southern Dynasties. He served as magistrate of Wukang County, which in 1958 became part of today’s Deqing County. After looking around he decided to build his home upon a place at the foot of Mount Mogan. The village grew and it was called Yuchun which literally means Family Yu’s Village. Yu Jianwu was a distinguished poet and calligrapher. His son Yu Xin (513-581) also served as a magistrate of Wukang County. But Yu Xin is best known for his poetry and essays. In the history of Chinese literature, he is the greatest personage of the literature during the Northern and Southern Dynasties (420-589). He was highly rated by poets of the Tang Dynasty (618-907). Unfortunately, the village does not have many physical relics left that relate to the poetic glory of the Yu family centuries ago. I saw some stone horses that marked tombs in ancient times.

In the history of Yuchun Village, Huang Fu (1880-1936) is a prominent name. He played a big role in shaping the rural area around Mount Mogan in modern times.

A revolutionary, Huang was a sworn brother of Chiang Kai-shek, and followed Sun Yat-sen in the endeavors to overthrow the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Huang was a high-profile official in Chiang’s administration. For political reasons, he spent much time in retirement in his twilight years in Mount Mogan after 1928. During his stay in one of the villas in the mount, he found time to visit villages at the foot of the scenic mount. He was astonished to find the stark contrast between the opulence in the mountain and the poverty in the villages. After finding most rural residents were illiterate and children did not have a school to go to, Huang decided to help. With the assistance of Huang and his wife, Mogan Primary School was officially founded on June 1, 1932. Huang and his wife attended the opening ceremony. Huang wrote the school’s mission in the form of a couplet.

Moreover, Huang also started a series of rural projects to help lift local residents out of poverty. With the primary school as the venue, an evening school was set up to offer training courses to local farmers. These courses were more than technical oriented. Some courses were about getting rid of old lifestyle and embracing new lifestyle as China was slowly and painfully advancing from the feudal time into the modern era. Under Huang’s care, technicians set up a silkworm breeding farm and a dairy farm, promoted new ways to plant Tung-oil trees (Aluerites Fordii), taught local farmers how to raise silkworms in a new way. They even taught local residents how to use bio-gas for cooking. In addition to the primary school, Huang also set up a library and named it Wenzhi Library after his father. Most of Huang’s rural projects are kept in tact today whereas the school, library and silkworm farm have undergone substantial changes.

A century ago, foreigners started land development projects in Mount Mogan. Today, foreigners are making similar contributions to the rural area around the mount. In another part of Moganshan Town is a small hamlet called Three Nine Valley. Local people call itThree Nine because there were only three families and nine people altogether in the hamlet. Now the hamlet has more than 18 families, but most adults are away working jobs in cities. In 2007, a South African named Grant Horsfield tumbled upon this quiet village hidden in this valley when he roamed the scenic rural area. He rent the rural houses from local families and retrofitted them into a hostel for foreign tourists and outdoor sports enthusiasts. Following his footsteps, some more foreign entrepreneurs have come to Three Nine Valley to run their own hostels. Today, the valley is home to more than ten hostels that cater to foreigners who like the simple lifestyle and rural decoration and furniture they probably cannot find anywhere else.