Dayuan village: place of historic, cultural interest in Fujian

Amid the dense mountains in East China's Fujian province sits a quiet village that has been in existence for more than a thousand years and attracts many visitors every year thanks to the profound historic and cultural interest that it arouses amongst tourists.

Dayuan village, located in Xinqiao township, Taining county, Sanming city, boasts over 30 historic sites, including ancient post roads and ancestral halls of prestigious ancient local figures.

Most of them are well-preserved thanks to the efforts of the Taining government who have spent more than 5 million yuan in renovating and protecting them in recent years. The ancestral halls are now set up as exhibition centers to showcase the village's traditional culture and values to the outside world.

The village is also famous for its inheritance of two provincial intangible cultural heritages, the Nuo Dance, a folk ritual dance carrying the meaning of warding off evil spirits and praying for blessings, and the Chibo Dragon Lantern, a special folk dance performed with dragon-shaped lanterns.

The local government built two parks in the village in 2016 as the performance venue of the two dances and started to organize various related cultural activities in 2017 to promote them. It also encouraged the dancers to perform in local restaurants to increase their income and boost the local tourism. Currently there is a permanent team of 15 performers of Nuo Dance in the village, most of whom are 60 years old or above.

"I've performed the Nuo Dance for more than 20 years. It's really fun and meaningful for me," said a member of the team surnamed Yan at an interview with China Daily on Feb 13.

"Culture needs to be inherited by human beings, and we aim to further develop the cultural heritages to revitalize our village," said Yan Rongyan, head of the Xinqiao township at the interview.