In Hongfuqian Village, Chuancao Town, Qingtian County, Lishui City, Zhejiang Province, nearly 60-year-old villager Chen Youfen wipes sweat from her forehead as she tends to a steaming pot of wontons. She never imagined that the homemade wontons she has prepared for half a lifetime would become a signature attraction drawing tourists to her village. Behind this success lies the efforts of an "artistic rural revitalization" advocate from Taiwan—Wu Lixing, associate professor in the Department of Art and Design at the College of Literature of Nankai University.
Born in Taiwan, Wu crossed the strait in 2004 to pursue a doctoral degree at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Since then, he has settled in mainland China, dedicating himself to art education. Through his travels across the country, he encountered diverse local customs and gained inspiration: could art and design inject new vitality into rural common prosperity? Thus, villages like Luojiakeng and Majia have witnessed the footprints of Wu and his team's "artistic rural revitalization" initiatives.
His connection with Hongfuqian Village began in 2024 when Wu brought his students to survey the ancient settlement. Chen Youfen's wontons, with their paper-thin wrappers and clear, flavorful broth, quickly won over the students, who privately nicknamed her the "Food Goddess." When Wu encouraged her to open a shop, Chen waved her hands apprehensively, worrying about renovation costs and potential losses.
Wu decided to adopt a "low-cost intervention, high-emotional investment" approach to awaken local resources. Starting with the small vegetable garden beside Chen’s home, he proposed creating a "Food Goddess's Garden." "We’ll just sell wontons—the kind you can eat every day without getting tired of them!" Wu and his students declared.
In March 2024, Hongfuqian Village held its first Flower Festival. Crowds gathered outside Chen’s courtyard, where she busily worked in a clean apron, earning up to 3,000 RMB in a single day. Seeing Chen profit from her skills, other villagers became eager to participate, launching specialty products like "Hongfu Sesame Balls" and "Hongfu Wheat Cakes" to avoid homogeneous competition.
By 2025, Wu’s team had also cultivated new ventures such as the "Hongfu Hanfu Studio" and "Chuancao Luck Café," offering services like Hanfu rentals, intangible cultural heritage experiences, and flower field photography. The transformation of Hongfuqian Village even inspired neighboring Chenhe Village across the Oujiang River. There, Wu repurposed an idle Ji family cellar into a "Driftwood" bar, symbolizing the homecoming sentiment of overseas villagers.
"Mainland China’s countryside holds limitless possibilities," Wu remarked. He emphasized that the ultimate goal of "artistic rural revitalization" is not to create ornamental "bonsai" but to foster "homesteads" where villagers can live and thrive. Today, the aroma of Hongfuqian’s wontons carries even farther, and Wu Lixing’s journey in artistic rural revitalization continues.