Introduction: All Things Return to Dust

Li Mengjun, director of Guandu · Wenli in Songyang, told us that as an operator of heritage culture, Guandu is engaged in a wide range of cultural tourism operations, covering accommodation, catering and leisure, cultural experiences, as well as the R&D and sales of cultural and creative products. Their goal is not just to take tourists to see the scenery, but to enable tourists to gain a deeper understanding of Songyang in terms of humanities, history, local customs and other aspects through Guandu — what she calls "Traveling Songyang with Guandu".

Guandu's philosophy carries a touch of Zen: they have developed five series of cultural and creative products, corresponding to the five elements of metal, wood, water, fire and earth. Among them, the clay sculpture handcraft course under the earth series was their first course, named "The Cultivation of Clay". Li Mengjun explained the origin of this name as follows: the material for making clay sculptures comes from the mud on the riverbank. After being shaped, if it breaks, or if the shaping fails and it is restored to its original form, it will simply return to being mud----turning back into mud from mud..

This embodies a philosophical thought similar to "seeing a mountain as a mountain, and finally seeing a mountain still as a mountain". The mud from the riverbank, through the hands of craftsmen, enters elegant halls and becomes ridge beasts for house protection, household porcelain, or collectibles carrying implied meanings. It witnesses prosperity and all aspects of human life, but in the end, it will return to a handful of soil. Outsiders only see the soil, but the soil itself knows how much cultivation it has undergone during this cycle — and this in itself is part of the subject of cultivation.

Before participating in UNESCO's "Beautiful Dialogues" oral history program and coming to Songyang as an oral history interviewer, our knowledge of Songyang was very limited. Despite its reputation as "the last secret place in the Jiangnan region", our impression of Songyang was only based on the imagination of its scenery. After completing the interview with Li Mengjun, we finally gained a relatively comprehensive understanding of Songyang and a clear direction for our exploration. In the nearly one - week visit that followed, we interviewed various vendors in the old street and even the entire old town of Songyang. Among them were snack stall owners who left their hometown and later returned, craftsmen who stayed rooted in Songyang, and individual business owners who had run their shops on the old street for 20 years without interruption... From their answers, we pieced together the thread of Songyang's intangible cultural heritage, and behind this intangible cultural heritage lies the direct embodiment of Songyang's local customs, commerce and humanities. The thread of Songyang has deep roots and luxuriant leaves.

The starting points and endpoints of all threads are almost connected and interlocked, just like the course named "The Cultivation of Clay". Culture and history are protected here to the greatest extent, forming a wonderful closed loop.

In 2021, to promote cross - river development, Songyang County carried out regional upgrading of the county seat and began to build the South City New District, which was positioned as a central business district, a government service center and a high - tech cultural and educational area. Since then, the county has been divided into the new and old districts. With the Ming and Qing Dynasty old street as its core route, the old town starts from the bank of the Songyin River in the south and extends north to the middle sections of Xinhua Road and Changhong Middle Road. It includes the Nanzhi Street Historical and Cultural Block, the Tanglan Guild Hall - Confucian Temple Historical and Cultural Block and the Beizhi Street Historical and Cultural Block, forming a complete historical protection urban area.

Our oral history exploration this time also centered on the Ming and Qing Dynasty old street and extended to the entire old town of Songyang. We interviewed an elderly couple running a cloth shop on the old street, Aunt Fu who owns the Grandma Xiancao Shop on the pedestrian street, a young man running a midnight snack stall downstairs of Nihao Hotel, owners of several baked pancake shops, an aunt running a barbershop that also sells Dragon Boat Festival Tea on the old street, Tao Huowang who owns the Agricultural Museum on the old street, Wang Genwei who runs a porcelain restoration studio, Grandma Bao Chunlan who is in charge of looking after the Tianhou Palace and Sister Hu who happened to be accompanying her and chatting in the temple, Huang Weibing, the only palm fiber bed craftsman in Songyang, and Wu Zhongliang, the blacksmith of Liangliang Blacksmith Shop.

Some of these interactions were just brief chats, some were interviews with certain expectations, and some were unexpected conversations. Through a combination of planned visits and chance encounters, we touched upon various links and key points of the thread of Songyang in our dialogues, and also put forward our own understandings and new questions regarding the old town of Songyang and even the protection of intangible cultural heritage.

I.The Thread of Intangible Cultural Heritage

1. Rural Social Pattern

Songyang has made great efforts in the protection of intangible cultural heritage. Shops on the old street, such as palm fiber product shops and blacksmith shops, all have wooden signboards hanging at their doorways marked "Songyang ICH Shop". Songyang County is rich in intangible cultural heritage, including traditional craftsmanship, folk customs and traditional operas. Among them, palm fiber products, blacksmithing and cotton fluffing techniques were included in the fourth batch of county - level intangible cultural heritage lists in 2018, and their history can be traced back more than 1,200 years.

As a "county - level specimen of classical China", various types of intangible cultural heritage in Songyang preserve a complete old rural social pattern. In the past, Songyang was part of the Songgu Basin, which was suitable for farming and served as a granary in southwestern Zhejiang. The saying "When Songyang has a good harvest, Chuzhou has enough food" fully illustrates the prosperity of farming in Songyang since ancient times. The agricultural society gave rise to a large demand for iron tools, making blacksmithing one of the important local crafts. The trade of agricultural products led to the development of a mature small - scale peasant economy, and finally, ironware, salt, cloth, money shops, dyeing workshops and other businesses gathered in the old street of the city.

Moreover, the frequent trade further promoted the demand for personal image management. Li Mengjun said, "There are many barbershops on the old street... This is a very important symbol. In the past, when people came to the old street to do business or for other purposes, they would first tidy themselves up before discussing business."

In addition, the mature economy greatly promoted the development of culture. Zhang Yuniang, one of the four great female poets of the Song Dynasty, was born here. The Songyang High - Pitched Opera, a local opera genre originating from Songyang, was included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage lists in 2006 and is one of the oldest existing opera genres in Zhejiang Province.

This clear rural social chain is also preserved in the Agricultural Museum on the old street. The name "Agricultural Museum" was given by its owner Tao Huowang himself; it is not an official museum. The shop has two storefronts and a two - story structure, covering an area of approximately 300 square meters. The storefront sells various antiques and antique - style decorative items, while the backyard displays old objects collected and purchased by Tao Huowang from various places.

Although Tao Huowang humbly said, "There are quite a lot of things, but they are not displayed in a professional way", the exhibition arrangement of this Agricultural Museum actually has quite a few ingenuity and logic. Upon entering the backyard, there is a wooden staircase leading to the upper floor on the right - hand side, and the middle part is structured like a courtyard in a rural house. In the very center, there is a stone mill, and a huge bamboo basket is placed above it. The bamboo basket was used to hold water in the past. It was woven densely and coated with tung oil, so it could hold water without leakage. "As we say nowadays, 'drawing water with a bamboo basket is a fruitless effort', but (back then) bamboo baskets could hold water", Tao Huowang explained. Then he turned to the stone mill and began to introduce it, "You (should) have seen quite a lot of things like this."

On the wall next to the stone mill, there are display racks on which various pottery jars, dinner plates, an old folding screen, several abacuses and a fax machine are placed. Due to the limited indoor space, many objects do not have much space for display and just stand there quietly, waiting for someone's gaze to fall on them. Further ahead, there is an exquisitely crafted wedding bed with the inscription "Glad to see red plums bear more fruits, happy to watch green bamboos give birth to new shoots" — it was probably made during the Ming or Qing Dynasty.

In front of the main hall in the backyard, several rooms branch off. Tao Huowang's favorite is the "Five Sons Achieving Fame Bed" collected in another small room. The bed is equipped with drawers for storing items, and the entire bed is connected using mortise and tenon joints. The exterior is carved with patterns of plum blossoms and magpies, and the words "Five Sons Achieving Fame Bed" are written on the top of the bed. According to Tao Huowang, this bed should date back to the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. When a scholar passed the imperial examinations and obtained an official position, his family would have such a bed made for him.

The two magpies carved on the bed symbolize "double happiness arriving at the door". Tao Huowang believes this is very meaningful and stylish. "The carving work is quite delicate, and the knife work is very powerful... It should be said that they were made by masters at that time." The making of the entire bed also took a lot of time and effort. "They call it a 'thousand - work bed' because it took several years to make one bed... It is made of wood, and at that time... the planks were all sawn by hand."

Tao Huowang acquired this "Five Sons Achieving Fame Bed" 20 years ago, and now it is almost impossible to find such a bed anymore. Although it has a history of more than 100 years, it is well - preserved. The entire bed is very intact, and despite being made of wood, there is no mold or wear and tear at all. Tao Huowang is among the first group of people in Songyang County to collect old objects. Next to the ancient bed, there is also a handcart he collected. It was still a commonly used farming tool when he was 14 or 15 years old, and one cart could carry more than 1,000 kilograms of goods at a time, which was highly efficient in the agricultural society. In addition, there are many iron and bamboo farming tools, kitchen utensils and other tools, all of which are placed in different "exhibition areas" in categories, and the original placement pattern is restored as much as possible.

The upper floor mainly houses some lightweight objects, such as original land deeds, specimens of insects and tobacco leaves, palm fiber products, and even calligraphy works written by Tao Huowang's ancestors. Influenced by the developed commerce in the Jiangnan region, various contract documents have also become unique local products here. The specimens are from the Songyang Forestry Institute more than 10 or 20 years ago. After the old houses were demolished, the original specimens were sold in packages, and Tao Huowang purchased them all. The time when these specimens were made is even earlier, dating back to the 1970s and 1980s.

Starting from agricultural tools, to furniture, kitchen utensils, then to paper contracts and decorative items, the logic of the exhibition is almost perfectly in line with the development logic of agricultural civilization, once again demonstrating the various threads of Songyang as a microcosm of agricultural civilization. Moreover, most of the links and items in this thread have been included in the intangible cultural heritage lists at all levels, making it almost a miniature "River Map of Intangible Cultural Heritage".

2. Industrialization of ICH

A new ICH industrial model has also emerged and developed here. After Guandu · Wenli in Songyang settled in, it reorganized and explored local cultural characteristics, ICH techniques and other cultural tourism resources in Songyang, conducted a round of sorting and screening, and then integrated and innovated from the perspective of cultural tourism industry operation.

Based on Guandu's integration and brand design, they have promoted the industrialization of ICH in two aspects. Firstly, in the R&D of cultural and creative products, they have developed five series corresponding to metal, wood, water, fire and earth. The metal series includes scale - making, mother - of - pearl brooches and tin sheet coasters, and the origin of these crafts is the local developed blacksmithing technique. There are relatively more products in the wood series. The appearance of sachets is related to the local characteristic Dragon Boat Festival Tea in Songyang; both originated as health - preserving methods and are health - preserving customs derived from the special solar term of Dragon Boat Festival. Secondly, they have implemented the "ICH +" strategy, combining ICH materials and techniques with other items. For example, they combined the local Dragon Boat Festival Tea in Songyang with coffee to create a herbal light health coffee.

"The technique of the Dragon Boat Festival Tea mentioned just now is a provincial - level intangible cultural heritage in Zhejiang... Our brown sugar is traditional - method brown sugar, which is a municipal - level ICH project in Lishui City. We have combined this brown sugar with coffee to make a hot coffee drink," Li Mengjun said. "In terms of the power of ICH, we should say that we are better at making use of ICH, integrating it into new life, so that more people can benefit from it."

One of the most distinctive designs of Guandu in the "ICH +" initiative is a palm fiber - woven horse. Palm fiber weaving has a long history in Songyang. Palm fiber beds woven with palm silk were commonly used furniture in the Jiangnan region in the past and are a collective memory of several generations. However, palm fiber beds are becoming increasingly rare nowadays. They take a long time to make, are difficult to transport, and fewer and fewer people use them, so fewer and fewer people are engaged in the palm fiber weaving industry. Huang Weibing, another interviewee of ours, and his wife Wu Jinmei run the only palm fiber shop left in Songyang. Most of the products they make are still traditional Songyang palm fiber beds, brooms and other practical tools. A few years ago, they tried to make some palm fiber bags and also made some palm fiber brooms the size of a palm according to customers' requests, but overall, they still adhere to the idea of making practical tools. Before the Spring Festival, Li Mengjun was just developing bamboo weaving series products when she suddenly thought about whether she could make a bamboo horse. However, the first thing that came to her mind was a palm fiber horse. She recalled the local palm fiber weaving technique and made the first small horse using palm ropes.

"After it was made, it was placed there for display at first, and many customers picked it up to play with. Then we started to prepare some materials. We used cotton ropes like this to combine with palm ropes, and added more creativity to its color matching," Li Mengjun said. The birth of the palm fiber - woven horse, like that of most works of art, followed no fixed rules and was not a deliberate creation. "Inspirations come in an instant. For example, with this small horse, I initially thought of a bamboo horse, and then suddenly it occurred to me that we should combine it with palm fiber. It was a very sudden idea."

However, the subsequent development truly showed the difference between the new ICH industrial model and the original rural social model. After the first palm fiber - woven small horse was created and received feedback from customers, Li Mengjun began to further develop it with her team. For example, they added decorations made of colored cotton ropes on the back of the small horse or hung copper coins on it to endow it with symbolic meanings. They also planned to carry out large - scale promotion, publicity and sales in the coming year — the Year of the Horse in the lunar calendar.

In the later interview with Huang Weibing, the palm fiber bed craftsman, we also talked about the small horse created by Guandu and wanted to know if Huang Weibing had participated in its design or production. However, he said he had not participated and only provided the palm silk raw materials. This is because obtaining palm silk raw materials is quite complicated: palm silk is attached to large palm leaves, and it is necessary to first rub them loose by hand, clean them, pull out the silk one by one, and finally wind them into composite palm ropes using tools.

This is a typical industrial operation chain: raw material procurement, new product design, pilot production, feedback collection and optimization, mass production, and promotion and operation. Before meeting Li Mengjun, we thought the palm fiber - woven small horses displayed in the Wenli Café were all of Songyang's cultural and creative products. But after the interview, we realized that behind the palm fiber - woven horses is the support of an entire brand. In the process of the coexistence of the new and old models, the old ICH techniques are widely used through industrial operation, and the innovative R&D in the operation of the cultural tourism industry is based on traditional ICH products and their implied meanings.

II.The Thread of the Old Town

1. Commercial and Daily Life

Following the clue of traditional ICH techniques, we visited more handicraft workshops and individual shops, such as Tao Huowang, the owner of the Agricultural Museum mentioned above, Wang Genwei, the porcelain restorer we had a brief conversation with later, a couple running a cloth shop, teahouses and barbershops scattered around the old street, and owners of small shops selling local specialty foods such as Dengzhan Cake (a kind of fried cake) and Xiancao Jelly.

Those shops or crafts that are not yet listed as ICH at present have further filled the ecological niches in the traditional rural social model, forming the commercial thread of Songyang.

First are the raw material suppliers. We did not see any vendors selling palm leaves, but we could still get a glimpse of this link from the notice reading "Purchasing Palm Leaves" posted at the entrance of Huang Weibing's shop. According to Huang Weibing, the palm fiber bed craftsman, palm trees are easy to grow. "When palm seeds fall into the soil, they grow by themselves" and do not need to be deliberately planted. However, the palm trees growing in his yard are too small, so he still needs to purchase palm materials from others. "When purchasing palm leaves, I don't know if they have palm leaves to sell, so I wrote a notice asking them to send the palm leaves here if they have any to sell." From his answer, it can be inferred that there is no fixed supply for this raw material transaction, and Huang Weibing probably has not established a long - term cooperation with any vendor selling palm leaves; he just collects raw materials from a wide range of sources.

In addition, cotton is also a raw material for commodities such as cloth, ready - made clothes and cotton quilts. However, we did not see any cotton - related suppliers during this trip, nor did we hear any mention of them in the conversations with the owners of cloth shops and other stores.

Next are primary or lightly processed agricultural products, mainly green tea and Dragon Boat Festival Tea. There are many shops selling Dragon Boat Festival Tea on the old street, and their raw materials are basically the same. Green tea is an even more important local industry in Songyang. According to Li Mengjun from Guandu, in modern times, Songyang no longer grows as much grain as before and has gradually shifted to the tea industry. "Now we still have more than 100,000 mu (a unit of area, 1 mu ≈ 0.0667 hectares) of tea plantations. We also have the 'First Green Tea City in China' — the release site of the green tea trading price index. There is such a green tea trading and settlement market called the Southern Zhejiang Tea Market."

Further along the chain are the small craftsmen we learned a lot about during our visit. The cloth shops providing tailoring and ready - made clothes making services, Huang Weibing's palm fiber product shop, the blacksmith shops represented by Wu Zhongliang's Liangliang Blacksmith Shop, and many hardware stores all belong to this link in the industrial structure. Two "unique" entities that cover the entire scope of this link are the individual collector — the "Agricultural Museum" and the individual restorer — the "Porcelain Restoration Studio". Tao Huowang and Wang Genwei, who run these shops, are currently the only people engaged in this industry in Songyang and even Lishui. The Agricultural Museum has a collection of items covering the entire process from raw material processing tools to small handcrafted finished products, while the Porcelain Restoration Studio is responsible for restoring old earthen jars, as well as various types of tea sets and exquisite porcelain today.

From the core trading link, other business types have been derived to meet people's needs, such as tailor shops and ready - made clothes stores for personal image needs, and Xiancao Jelly shops, Dengzhan Cake shops and noodle shops for food needs.

The traditional rural social model preserved in the old town consists of the following links: raw materials — primary or lightly processed agricultural products — small craftsmen — individual collectors — individual restorers — ready - made clothes making/barbershops — food sales. These links are closely connected and extremely stable, forming the rich commercial formats of Songyang with this as the thread.

However, the new cultural tourism operation model introduced by Guandu is different from this traditional model. Instead of each person or each family occupying one ecological niche, Guandu is involved in the entire chain. It undertakes all aspects of tourism services, ranging from accommodation and catering (including meal ordering) to souvenirs, cultural and creative design, guided tours and workshop experiences. It has homestays and restaurants under its umbrella, and at the same time conducts R&D of cultural and creative products and provides tour guide services and workshop experience activities. Li Mengjun said, "We can provide tourism consultation services, offer customers better tourism suggestions, itinerary arrangements and recommendations... including ICH experiences and ICH appreciation." She also added, "Anyone can come here. What can they do here? They can stay here, as we have homestays; they can eat here, as we have Guandu Family Banquet, which serves authentic local dishes of Songyang."

2. The City and the Countryside

In our overall interview with Li Mengjun, we also asked about the differences between the countryside and the old town of Songyang. Before coming to Songyang, when we learned about it online, we were more attracted by its well - preserved ancient villages and tended to visit those ancient villages. Since we were collecting oral history of the old town of Songyang this time, we wanted to know how people living here feel about the differences between the old town of Songyang and those ancient villages.

The answer we received was comprehensive:

"I think the old street is quite different from the countryside. The countryside is centered on farming, focusing on daily life and natural landscapes. The old street is a accumulation of culture, as well as a accumulation of various commercial activities and agricultural civilization since ancient times. Up to now, you can see various traditional manual crafts on the old street, such as blacksmithing, scale - making, palm fiber bed making and cotton fluffing, as well as various specialty foods of Songyang. The old street has a history of more than 1,200 years, and in fact, all these things are the accumulation of these 1,200 years. In the countryside, you may only see a single aspect of it — the scenes of production and labor, the natural scenery and the rural landscape as I just mentioned. So it's not a matter of which one is better; both are worth visiting."

Introduction of Contributors

• Yuxing Liang ：A graduate of the Department of Philosophy at Tongji University, he is developing the "Night Navigation Boat" Café & Bar in the digital nomad community on Huanglong Island and launching a startup project focused on the intangible cultural heritage of Huanglong Island's fishing rope knots. During his visit to Songyang, he aims to observe the vibrant living patterns of the rural area, discover touching rural stories, and explore alternative lifestyles.

• Yushan Guo：A freelance writer and member of the Youth Committee of the Hangzhou Literature Association. She has participated in the co-construction of Huanglong Island in Zhoushan City, and has also worked, studied, and visited Xinguang Village in Liangzhu and Luniao Town in Yuhang District. She looks forward to witnessing more possibilities of rural development in Songyang, her fourth stop.

• Qiuyan Wang：Having explored 46 cities in 2 years, she focuses on local life, intangible cultural heritage and folk customs, historical archaeology, etc. As an ENFJ, she is enthusiastic, reliable, and observant, proficient in collaborating with diverse groups, and has experience in rural innovation projects. She looks forward to exploring, documenting, and inheriting the memories of Songyang's old town by the streams of Songyang.

Preview:

Outcomes of This Oral History Initiative

Are now on display at Wenli in Songyang.We look forward to meeting you in person offline,To embark together on this"appointment"dedicated to rural memories.