After living in a city for a long time, when you are asked "what's interesting in this city" by a friend from outside, do you feel at a loss for words, or all you think of are places that are well known to the public?
If you spend an afternoon under the leadership of professionals, would you like to use another "open way" to re-understand your city?
In the past two years, affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic, local tourism has become the mainstream.
At the same time, young people are no longer satisfied with fancy tourism, or simply enjoy visual enjoyment through natural scenery. An emerging tourism method "Citywalk" is gradually becoming popular in first- and second-tier cities in my country.
Young people not only like to walk in the city, but also develop their own route products, calling everyone to explore the cultural treasures of the streets and alleys.
A number of industry insiders predict that at a time when people pay more and more attention to the sense of experience and interaction, Citywalk may become a new "explosion" of local tourism.
In-depth interaction with the city by walking
What is Citywalk?
As the name suggests, it refers to city walking or city walking: several people walk together on a unique route under the leadership of professional narrators, and experience the freshness of a city from the aspects of history, geography, culture, and customs. living vitality.
Participants can not only be foreign tourists, but locals can also re-acquaint themselves with the locals.
"Although we all live in Beijing, we actually don't know much about Beijing." Since last year, Beijing girl Tian Yuan participated in several Citywalk activities and became fascinated by such urban micro-travel.
"For a place like the Forbidden City that is well-known to the public, if it is an ordinary tour, the explanation may be the same. But in the event, the narrator has a deeper research and understanding of the Forbidden City, and he will find a different way to take a different route and tell different stories, which is very interesting. "
After working in Beijing for more than two years, Chen Hanxuan likes to participate in the design of some interesting Citywalk routes, and is also willing to exchange views with the participants while walking. Now that spring is here, it’s time to walk around and explore this beautiful city.”
Qi Jia called her hometown Changsha, Hunan, "the most familiar stranger".
Returning after leaving Changsha for 16 years, she likes to take her two-and-a-half-year-old child to participate in activities, "We walked through Chaozong Street, Wangyue Lake, Donggua Mountain in Shahe Street, Confucian Temple Ping, etc., which are usually overlooked or sound familiar. The corner of the city, I didn’t expect to dig deep and become a treasure place.”
In her opinion, "What I like more is the wonderful time experienced by different teammates, the temperament of Changsha witnessed together, the variety of market conditions we saw together, and the aftertaste left by memories after a period of time."
Just like Qi Jia, Xiao Xiao resigned from his job in Beijing and returned to his hometown of Changsha, and found that Changsha after urban renewal was different from what he remembered. "Every time we go to a city, we like to run wild. It can bring different surprises. When I come back to Changsha, I feel like a foreigner again, and I feel that Changsha has too many unique history and culture that deserve to be displayed and understood.”
At first, he designed interesting niche routes by himself, and visited with friends from other places. After receiving more and more feedback and encouragement, Xiao Xiao and his undergraduate students officially launched the local Citywalk event in Changsha in 2019 and established Since Jiu Er Studio, more than 800 people have participated in the activities organized by them.
On the Zhihu platform, they wrote: "Most cities in the world were born with a size that can reach all corners on foot. For example, Changsha City, until the Republic of China, was only 4 kilometers from north to south, and only 1.5 kilometers from east to west. . With the passage of time and the development of modernization, there is today's super city. Walking is a way to return to the original. Using footsteps to measure the city can help us re-understand the space and pattern of the city. Those legacy historical buildings and cultural relics, can provide a perspective beyond time, allowing us to experience the living conditions of urban residents in history.”
Show another side of the city's deep history
Starting from the "Changsha Twelve Hours" bookstore, walk through the entire Chaozong Street historical and cultural block, looking for the ancient buildings that survived the Wenxi fire; strolling Changsha Zhongshan Road, feeling that as the birthplace of karaoke culture, it has the earliest and largest domestic The historical stories and culture behind the Children's Library, etc... Based on the local characteristics of Changsha, Xiao Xiao's studio has launched more than 20 Citywalk routes, which not only designed the food exploration route of the Internet celebrity city, but also the memory of the old city of Changsha. Humanity route.
Different from wandering aimlessly, in her opinion, the design of the Citywalk route should be able to help everyone discover the human geography, customs, etc. of the city more efficiently, “Many routes are like walking in an open-air museum, and we will Carry out content design. When we bring tourists from other places, we focus on telling our feelings and opinions about Changsha, and more of it is output; if we bring local people to play, we are more about discussing the past, present and future of the city with you.”
As a former tourism industry practitioner, An Linlin likes to organize a Citywalk every weekend while running B&Bs around Beijing, "When I was designing foreign tourism products, I also liked to join a half-day city walk. Living like a local counts as a trip.”
Because of the early industry accumulation, she and some scholars and researchers have jointly polished six or seven mature routes such as the central axis of Beijing, Bada Hutong, Dongjiaominxiang, and Houhai area.
In the past two years, "local people travel locally" has become a new fashion, and An Linlin also feels that more and more people are participating in her activities, "The original intention of organizing Citywalk is also to hope that people living in Beijing can be more Knowing this historical city, even if you spend two or three hours on weekends, you can walk and keep fit while learning about this familiar city and the neglected history and culture around you.”
In An Linlin's view, Citywalk route design and explanation word design are both key points and difficult points.
Taking the design of the Beijing Central Axis walking route as an example, she said, "It is too tiring to walk the route with a straight distance of about 7.8 kilometers at one time, so I divided the design into two routes, the South Central Axis and the North Central Axis. Contrasting is the theme, the south central axis is inclined towards the folk culture of old Beijing, while the north central axis is inclined towards the royal culture.”
After the route is determined, she will also invite scholars or enthusiasts of related cultural and folklore studies to become the narrator, and communicate with the participants in depth during the walk, "We will walk several times together, and I will listen to the narrator from the perspective of the participants. Explanation words, uninteresting or too professional knowledge points should be removed, and corrected to the content stage that the public can accept and find interesting.”
Together with his partner, he personally designed the route design and wrote the commentary. Xiao Xiao believes that only with a comprehensive understanding of the city can he design an impressive route.
In her opinion, the route design must not only have the urban spirit that you want to show, but also take into account the public's attention, so that the walking route that connects relevant places according to the theme can be popular.
However, Xiao Xiao said frankly that finding the historical data of the niche locations involved in the route is also a major difficulty.
"When we first returned to Changsha, because of our interest, we almost spent time in museums and libraries looking for books that recorded local history, and even chatted with some old citizens to collect folk history, and only then did we have a comprehensive understanding of Changsha. But the real beginning When designing a route, it is difficult to find the origin and past of a certain street from modern books. At this time, it may be necessary to search for experts who know history, old residents, and out-of-print books. External output".
The domestic market is taking shape
"The power of humanities, art, and walking is the power of aesthetics, the power of comfort, the power of trends, and in the final analysis, the power of civilization."
Five or six years ago, Gao Min, the founder of Hangzhou Art Travel Culture, a pioneering cultural and study tour organization, was an in-depth participant of Citywalk when he lived abroad.
However, after returning to China, he found that only some individuals or travel agencies occasionally launched similar activities, but they still stayed in the mode of leisure travel. The concept of ', I hope to increase professionalism and knowledge, create an urban humanistic walk, and feel the thickness and temperature of the city together."
Gao Min believes that each city has its own unique historical memory, cultural heritage, art venues, etc. In theory, it is possible to dig deep into the cultural content and then convert it into products or activities. The plasticity of urban cultural walking will be very high, and it will be easier to make sustainable projects.”
Today, they have set up city branches in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hangzhou. "Urban humanistic walks show people's spiritual needs and also have a certain educational component, so such emerging methods will bloom in big cities first. Results.” Having gained practical experience, they are planning to carry out urban substation projects in more cities.
How many people can this kind of urban humanities walk attract?
He observed that the participants in the inter-city activities were mostly local residents and cultural enthusiasts from surrounding cities, as well as senior citizens. "In each city, there are retired local residents who actively participated in the activities. They may not have I noticed that there are also important cultural stories behind the places where you walk and buy vegetables every day. After everyone has explored the city culture together, you can take the role of the master and bring your relatives and friends from other places to perceive your city more accurately. Especially the newcomers to the city , in a city with a busy and hard life, there is no real sense of belonging and identity. How to truly love the city also requires more spiritual awareness. The products of humanistic walking provide a way to quickly integrate into the city. A possibility for them to interact deeply with the city.”
Xiao Xiao believes that the domestic Citywalk market has only begun to take shape. "If 100 is used to represent saturation, it has only reached 20 from 0 in recent years."
In her opinion, as a very emotional project, it is very difficult to make a profit. "Currently, the studio's travel shooting business is a profit point. In the future, we hope to do long-term projects and make profits slowly. But in any case, we have seen opportunity, so I will stick to it.”
Gao Min also mentioned that the forms of urban humanistic walking projects are flexible and diverse, suitable for all ages, and the price of the itinerary from a few hours to a day is often very close to the people.
"From a market perspective, the direct benefits it can create are very limited. Considering the company's operation, we still mainly promote the study tour business and generate profits for the company."
However, as a lover of cultural value research, he still hopes to use the form of urban cultural walking to make "humanity" one of the background colors of modern people's life style, and also hopes that "remaining in the process of urban development will gradually disappear. precious urban memory”.
China Youth Daily, China Youth Daily reporter Meng Peipei Source: China Youth Daily
April 19, 2022 Version 07