Art direction and driven geese in the fake village of Yang Jiaxi. Photo / 远方雪的世界 Weibo
Art direction and driven geese in the fake village of Yang Jiaxi. Photo / 远方雪的世界 Weibo
China's hunger for a bygone age and photogenic farmland is feeding a boom in rural tourism. However, these bucolic scenes are less than organic.
Xiapu County has become the focal point for this movement.
Here, sampans glide through fishing villages full of meticulous nets. Lowland buffalo are led on throughbanyan trees and a scene that looks unchanged for hundreds of years. It's beautiful and all too perfect.
The morning mist is stage smoke and farmers all actors.
Rather than subsistence, social media is the main economic driver for these strange potemkin villages on the East China Sea.
The rugged coastline and islands of Fujiang are the closest point of the mainland to Taiwan and have been romanticised by artists and painters for centuries.
The artfully curved banyn trees of Yang Jiaxi are a familiar backdrop from countless holiday snaps. Photo / Getty Images
However the newest generation of landscape photographers are far more demanding. They need drama, extras and carefully art directed villages.
A whole genre of photo tourism has sprung up in the area.
Theme-parks, multi-day guided itineraries and tour companies have been sell the perfect image of Arcadian China.
The Beiqi Village mudflats have bleachers for photo tourists to get the perfect photo of fishermen. Neat rows of nets and poles reflect a striped pattern refered to as "Tiger skin".
Nobody seems to realise it is the wrong season for harvesting the fisheries and kelp.
The actors themselves feel some shame when they reveal their nets are empty and it is all for show.
"When they hear that these are staged, their hearts will drop a little," actor Liu Weishun told the New York Times. "Sometimes I'll just say, 'Oh, it's not the right season, just to make them feel better."
Fish netting and Tiger-skin poles on the mudlands of Xiapu County. Photo / Unsplash, Sammy Wong
However it's not only tourists who have been taken in by the intricate scenes from a bygone era. Several photo competitions have awarded prizes to images from Xiapu's photo theme parks.
In 2018 National Geographic Photographer of the Year awarded its prestigious community prize to an image of a fisherman repairing a net in one of the villages
Other photographers are under no illusion about the 'fantastical' nature of their photo tours.
Yangjiaxi Village is another popular destination for shutterbugs.
"Start your morning photo session here, catch the performance by local actors for an endless teams of photographers even before 9:00 am," reads the blurb for a tour Trip.com. "Got a professional camera?- you"ll get nice pics."
A "farmer" waits for his next photo call in Xiapu County. Photo / 远方雪的世界, Weibo
Behind the lens at a Xaipu photography tour. Photo / 睡恣, Trip.com
Week-long photography itineraries are sold through Fujiang, along with photography tips.
It's a landscape and particular genre of tourism that has been shaped by the pressures of social media. Whether that be Instagram or Weibo, the need to document a perfect, sensational experience has become a central part of Xaipu Country.
It's not by accident that China's most successful YouTuber 李子柒 Liziqi specialises in videos of life inside a rural idyll.
Her videos showcase traditional crafts in a staged agrarian landscapes. Something that has attracted an audience of 16.2 million subscribers.
The explosion of retro-rural tourism is something that has attracted intense study.
Nostalgia has become an important factor in selling everything from holidays to food packaging. In a country that has changed beyond recognition in a few generations, images of the past have huge potency, Argues Thomas David DuBois in the Journal of Asian Studies.
It is a chance to serve up a national myth in the most photogenic way possible.
Although, this academic interpretation doesn't take into account the appeal of social media. Tourists admit their reason for going on holiday is to return with the most brag worthy holiday snaps.
As one Weibo user, 欧气的包, notes when reviewing videos from a recent trip to Xiapu:
"The photos taken look like blockbusters, but in fact they are using smoke bombs," it reads. "But in this world, it seems that nobody cares if they are true or not, as long as they take good-looking photos."
