The inhabitants of a village in Shandong are tasting the fruits of a government drive to raise rural living standards

Linyi in Shandong is one of those Chinese cities that seems forever destined to play the role of bridesmaid to its provincial city siblings as they bask in fame and importance.

About 150 kilometers to Linyi's west is Qufu, the birthplace of Confucius, a further 100 kilometers or so away is the capital, Jinan, and about 300 kilometers to the northeast is Qingdao, renowned for its spectacular coastal setting among other things.

Yet Linyi, a city with more than 11 million inhabitants - making it bigger in population terms than New York or Paris - has made its mark on China and the world in other more subtle ways.

First of all there is that fried pancake called jianbing that is renowned throughout the country. It is made with maize flour, usually topped with eggs, green Chinese onion, crunchy wafer and sesame powder and is a staple breakfast food in northern China, and is said to date back to the Three Kingdoms period (220-280).

Four years ago jianbing was given a starring role in the China Central Television food documentary series A Bite of China, meaning that Chinese were given an insight into where the pancake originated. The location chosen as the backdrop for the story was Chunshugou village in Mengyin county, part of the Yimeng Mountain area and about 90 kilometers north of Linyi.

However, Linyi's repute in China runs much deeper than a pancake topped with egg and other things. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45) and the War of Liberation (1946-49), the Yimeng Mountain area served as a strategic stronghold and was the location of one of several revolutionary bases in the region.

In 1947 in the Menglianggu campaign during the civil war, an estimated 12,000 PLA soldiers died, and six years earlier, in the Daqingshan campaign, about 1,000 Chinese soldiers died while fighting the Japanese.

The area thus carved out a name for itself as a valiant stalwart of the revolution, but the very geographic characteristics that made it so valuable in conflict conspired against it in times of peace, its lack of infrastructure in particular acting as a brake while other parts of the country surged economically as the era of reform and opening up began to unfold at the end of the 1970s.

After A Bite of China splashed a spotlight on this long overlooked area with revolutionary credentials, Mengyin county authorities decided to seize the opportunity to put Chunshugou at the center of a push to stimulate economic development and thus raise living standards in the area.

As part of those efforts, money was poured into upgrading roads, villagers were encouraged to open farm houses for tourist accommodation in addition to a general push to encourage tourism and the growing of chestnuts and peaches was encouraged.

Last year Chunshugou's 1,180 inhabitants relished the fruits of this effort, with annual per capita income of 12,900 yuan ($1,920) compared with just 6,200 yuan in 2013.

One of the beneficiaries of this economic fortune has been Liu Yingqi, 57, who used to run a restaurant before being drawn into what has been called the agritainment businesses.

Liu's home, surrounded by chestnut trees, has four standard rooms and four single rooms for rent.

The price for a standard room is 228 yuan a night and for a single 180 yuan a night, prices common to all 60 farm hotels in the village.

Local government funding accounts for 40 percent of the investment in this industry, Liu says.

Soon after A Bite of China episode was shown in 2014, Chunshugou's authorities invited a company from Zhejiang province to remodel the whole village, and the uniform pricing for accommodation and catering is a vestige of that planning.

Liu regards running rural farm houses collectively under the government guidance as positive, reducing the possibility of competition and contention among the village's families. The government also ensures that guest rooms, kitchens and toilets are in good order and are hygienic, he says.

Liu is a leader of the local tourism cooperative, and in December 2014 he went on a local-government organized tour of Taiwan to find out about how agritainment businesses are run there. Taiwan serves as a good model because it is a pioneer in developing rural tourism, Liu says.

The village's online presence is very limited, and it relies for customs mainly on word-of-mouth referrals. During the low season, from January to April, villagers switch their commercial attentions to their peaches and chestnuts and to beekeeping and rabbit breeding.

Liu's son and daughter-in-law work in downtown Linyi, an hour's drive from Chunshugou. Thanks to better roads and newfound wealth - almost every household owns a car - parents who were once cut off from their adult children can now have frequent contact.

Rural vitalization is part of the central government's mission to reduce the gap between development in the city and in the countryside, and thanks to the humble jianbing, a well thought-out tourism strategy and better infrastructure the inhabitants of Chunshugou and Linyi have been given the chance to benefit from that drive.

yezizhen@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 08/04/2018 page18)