Youth hostels, public libraries, amphitheaters and activity centers, which are usually found in cities, are found in an ancient village at the foot of a large mountain. How did the village change? It starts in 2018. That year, Liu Lin, a post-90s girl, came to Wanjian Village at the foot of Tianzhu Mountain in Anhui Province, and she told the villagers that she was a rural planner from Beijing who wanted to plan the future development of this ancient village. She has lived in the village ever since.

Liu Lin has a habit of writing down her daily work in a record book, and now she has written more than 30 books. What exactly does a rural planner do? What is written in her notebook? Can young people from big cities plan centuries-old villages? For a while, the villagers talked about her arrival.

Long-term stay in the village to provide suggestions for the development of the village

What exactly does a village planner do? It turned out that in 2017, Anhui Province commissioned the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design to carry out the pilot work of traditional village protection, and Liu Lin was stationed here by the Central Planning Institute (Beijing) Planning and Design Co., Ltd. Instead of drawing a few drawings and writing a few pages of plans, the village planner has to live in the village for a long time and provide advice for the development of the village. It is necessary to find ways to increase the economic income of the villagers, improve the living conditions of the villagers, and enrich the spiritual life of the villagers. There are many ancient buildings in Wanjian Village in Qianshan City that need to be protected. The first thing a village planner does when he enters the village is to renovate the old house.

During the November holiday in 2020, Liu Lin began to discuss the renovation plan on the afternoon of the 2nd and continued to discuss it until 10 pm to rest. On the 3rd, I went to see the old house site with the construction party, and then continued to discuss the renovation plan. After Liu Lin entered the village, some young people who loved rural work came to Wanjian Village from Tiannanhaibei to join her team of rural planners.

The old houses have fallen into disrepair and the village has been hollowed out seriously

Liu Lin, born in 1991, came to Wanjian Village from Beijing five years ago and became a rural planner here. She came with a mission. After graduating from Sichuan University with a master's degree in bioengineering, she joined the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design. In 2017, Anhui Province commissioned the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design to carry out a pilot work on the protection of traditional villages, and Wanjian Village in Qianshan City became one of the pilot villages, and Liu Lin was sent here in 2018.

Rural planner Liu Lin: Planning is actually more forward-looking, in fact, it can really coordinate the current and long-term rural development path.

Wanjian Village is a traditional ancient village at the foot of Tianzhu Mountain, in a narrow strip, along the stream and mountain stream, scattered with ancient houses. Ancient buildings such as the Yang family's old residence and the Yang family's flower house here have a history of more than 400 years. When Liu Lin first arrived in Wanjian Village, she saw mostly old people and children left behind, deserted land with no knees and old houses in disrepair.

Village planner Liu Lin: Actually, my hometown itself is also rural, and I know very well that rural children learn and then slowly move away from the countryside. Let me really insist that the rural things can be done, in fact, in my current unit. I think from the perspective of planning, it is a better way to intervene in the countryside. I remember when I first came in 2018, it often rained in this place, and every time it rained, I had to take my mobile phone and go to the flower house and the old house to shoot those houses that were about to collapse, and I was especially worried that I hadn't done anything yet, it had already collapsed.

Protective maintenance of traditional buildings is the first thing Liu Lin began to do when she first came here, and finding a balance between "protecting the traditional style of ancient villages" and "improving the livability of villagers" is what Liu Lin and her team have been working hard to do.

In Liu Lin's view, whether it is planning and design or on-site coordination, when encountering problems, the team can discuss together, and finally find a way to solve them. And what gave her the most headache and helplessness was the misunderstanding and questioning of the villagers.

However, Liu Lin was not discouraged, and she and her partners carefully pondered and gradually found a way to break the misunderstanding. They began to go from house to house, taking the initiative to chat with the villagers and communicate sincerely. There was an old man cleaning in the village, and Liu Lin helped him work together, and since then they have become friends for the New Year.

The notebook records the bits and pieces of the renovation work of the old house

Liu Lin wrote down all the major events and small things she experienced in the village in her notebook, and in the past five years, she has written more than 30 such notes.

The renovation of the old house is complicated, and every bit has been recorded by Liu Lin in the record book. It is this kind of down-to-earth and sincere attitude that makes the villagers of Wanjian Village really regard these rural planners who come from afar as their own family, and rest assured that they will hand over the village to them for planning.

Planners show their expertise to help villagers increase their income

While renovating old houses, planners began to plan to help the villagers increase their income. Among the team was a young man named Xu Hao, who graduated from Huazhong Agricultural University with a master's degree. He proposed to use the wasteland in the village, combine the local climate and environment, and lead the villagers to plant agricultural products such as chrysanthemum. Another planner, Sun Yiming, is good at shooting videos and is just right to take on the promotion of agricultural products.

They first obtained the consent of the village cadres and formed a professional cooperative called "Memories of Homesickness". Villagers can participate in the form of shares, and receive regular benefits. Lao Rui, who served as the chairman of the cooperative, is a native of Wanjian Village, who has worked hard outside for most of his life, and the "homesickness complex" in his bones has allowed him to return here.

Rui Pingao, chairman of the Nostalgic Farmers' Professional Cooperative: We plant chrysanthemums in the chrysanthemum field and go up the mountain to pick bamboo shoots, and the maximum is more than 1,2 yuan a year.

Sun Yiming, who is in charge of publicity operations in Liu Lin's team, originally wanted to make a documentary about the Chinese countryside when she came to Wanjian Village, but after filming, she fell in love with it, stayed here, and joined the team of rural planners. Not long ago, she began to plan how to increase the popularity of agricultural products in the village, and her advantage of being good at shooting videos also played a role.

Village planner Liu Lin: We are doing accompaniment rural planning, in this process we will screen some cooperative teams, there are architecture, landscape, investment and financing, there are all kinds of agriculture, we are actually fighting a cooperative battle, step by step to bring the villagers to follow and do it together. In fact, many times we have separated the process of construction, but say how I build, manage, use, how to operate sustainably in localization, because the village is still a village of villagers, it should not become a village for tourists, but a village for locals.

Help villagers form associations Companionship village planning

The environment in the village has improved, and the income of the villagers has increased. The planners began to lay out how to enrich the spiritual life of the villagers and make them happier. The planners planned a series of clubs for Wanjian Village, such as the Elderly Association, the Office of the Little Librarian of the Book House, the Poetry Association, the Drama Association... It has planned a general direction for the development of these organizations, hoping to realize a high degree of villagers' mutual assistance, villagers' autonomy, and social co-help. Today, two years after Liu Lin drew the development path map, these have landed one by one.

Repairing old houses, adding scenery and greenery, driven by this group of young planners, the ancient village is becoming more and more beautiful. More than 5000,<> square meters of unused old houses have also been systematically transformed into community public spaces, including elderly activity centers, children's libraries, youth hostels and tourism service centers. Seeing the real new changes in the village, Liu Lin and them have become the "good children" of the villagers today.

Li Nanyun, a villager in Wanjian Village: The children are in our village, they have done a good job for our family, everything is great, we always want to help them, very hard.

Village planners ride electric cars and shout loudspeakers to promote the campaign to villagers.

Village planner Chen Xuemei: The whole village is very narrow and long, and the villagers are all built by the river, so if we don't shout with a loudspeaker, maybe the people we do in the lower stream don't know at all.

Now, driven by the village planners, the villagers have worked together to not only change the construction of the village, but also to refresh everyone's spiritual outlook.

Liu Lin, village planner: There are only twenty or thirty left-behind children in Wanjian Village, and in my opinion, these twenty or thirty children are the hope of this village, and it is possible that they will return to this place when they have the opportunity in the future.

Rural planner Chen Xuemei: Educating it is not a one-time thing, it needs perseverance, more of a companionship growth, that is, growing slowly with them.

Leave memories for youth and breathe vitality into the countryside

I read the stories of village planners and ancient villages. We understand that rural planners don't just plan buildings, they need to manage them after they are built, and they need to use them sustainably after they are managed. Instead of drawing a beautiful plan and throwing it to the villagers, we accompany the villagers to turn the plan into reality.

Liu Lin, who came to Wanjian Village, has already begun to intervene in the planning of the next village. Her work notebook paints a picture of the future of Caiwan Village in Danjiangkou City, Hubei Province. Liu Lin said that she hopes to help many villages plan in the future, just like philately, and paste the "Hemei villages" after the planning and construction of their youth road. (CCTV News Client)