Led by the tour guide, students knew the names and uses of each exhibit and  experienced the charm of traditional agriculture, as well as the hardships and toil through interactive Q&A and on-site demonstrations to understand happy life doesn’t come easily. 

 

Wuling Agricultural Civilization Museum is located on the bank of Dongjiang Bay, just a few hundred meters away from the Dongjiang Lake Scenic Area. It opened in September 2010 and is the only agriculture-themed museum in Hunan province. It houses agricultural themed physical objects like plows, rakes, wooden buckets and shoulder poles. It also features multiple scenes such as rice paddy field, forest hut and blacksmiths, reproducing vibrant and lively agricultural production and living scenes, and reflecting the agricultural production and folk customs of the Wuling Area. 

 

 

Relying on cultural tourism resources such as Dongjiang Lake and Huilong Mountain, as well as good ecology and favorable location, the city government has established an all-for-one tourism brand, and achieved high-quality development of the cultural tourism industry.

 

In recent years, with the help of the provincial and municipal tourism development conferences, the city government has further improved its tourism infrastructure, enhanced the quality of tourism services, strengthened tourism brand marketing, and launched quality tourist routes. 

 

At the same time, with study tours on the rise, efforts have been made to develop study tours in Zixing. 

 

As a characteristic venue of Zixing’s study tour, the Wuling Agricultural Civilization Museum has seized the opportunity to strengthen the management and solicitation of collections, improve the quality of explanation services to provide a more vivid experience for tourists.

 

The unique agricultural culture not only attracts more adult tourists as well as more study groups. 

 

“The Chinese agricultural culture has a long and profound history, and is the foundation of Chinese civilization. However, with the advancement of urbanization, many students have almost completely alienated from agricultural labor. At the same time, technological progress has gradually made agricultural tools passed down from ancestors replaced by agricultural machinery.” Fang Xin, director of the Zixing Cultural Heritage Center, introduced that although the Wuling Agricultural Civilization Museum is not large in area, it plays an important role in collecting and protecting agricultural cultural resources, displaying and disseminating excellent culture. 

 

And it’s also important to carry out agricultural culture and social education, inherit excellent traditional Chinese culture to enhance cultural confidence.

 

To attract more study teams, the museum carefully organizes colorful activities like New Year zodiac cultural relics photo exhibition, Zixing folk and scenery photography exhibition and farming experience. 

 

A series of easy-to-understand explanatory words have been created taking into account the characteristics of visitors’ age, aiming to stimulate students’ strong interest in traditional agricultural culture and let them gain knowledge and experience that cannot be obtained from textbooks.

 

“The Wuling Agricultural Civilization Museum has been highly praised by study teams, showing a new situation in the inheritance of excellent traditional culture. We will continue to improve management and services, and innovate a series of activities to contribute to the high-quality development of tourism,” said Fang Xin. The Wuling Agricultural Civilization Museum has become a popular attraction for study activities in southern Hunan, with nearly 200,000 students and teachers received in the past three years. 

 

Chinese source: hunantoday