Yesterday, Lishui City held the “Our Village Has Changed” Cultural Envoy Project Roadshow and Annual Work Promotion Conference. Through on-site presentations, speeches by representatives, and other forms of engagement, the event served to exchange and summarize advanced experience and distinctive practices in the work of cultural envoys, analyze bottlenecks and challenges, and study and deploy the priorities for the next stage of Lishui’s cultural envoy initiatives.

The cultural envoy program, an innovative measure introduced by the Publicity Department of the CPC Zhejiang Provincial Committee to implement the “Eight-Eight Strategies” and the “Eight Major Cultural Projects” and to advance Zhejiang’s initiative of building a culturally strong province, has been a key undertaking in recent years. Lishui City has focused on piloting the direct delivery of premium cultural resources to the grassroots, establishing a four-tier work system linking provincial, municipal, county, and township levels. To date, 182 cultural envoys have been appointed at various levels, achieving full coverage of all townships and subdistricts.

To support rural cultural development, Lishui City has established a three-level management system of “municipal coordination, county-township collaboration, and village-community implementation”. Five innovative mechanisms have been introduced, including joint municipal-county operations, exchange visits, competitive cultural showcases at the village level, mutual project reviews, and a three-color alert mechanism. At the municipal level, three cross-county thematic alliances have been established: the Red Culture Alliance, the Intangible Cultural Heritage Transmission Alliance, and the Music and Drama Alliance. Additionally, ten specialized cultural development alliances have been formed at the county level, such as the Longquan Celadon Cultural and Creative Alliance, the Qingtian Overseas Chinese Folk Culture Alliance, and the Songyang Ancient Village Artisan Alliance. These efforts have effectively promoted the sharing of high-quality cultural resources, collaborative project development, and collective achievements. To date, over 900 sessions of lectures such as the “Covered Bridge Forum” and “She Dialect Party Lectures” have been held, along with more than 2,300 village galas and intangible cultural heritage performances. The city has also cultivated 319 grassroots art troupes, launched a number of industrial development projects, and helped increase income from agriculture, culture, and tourism by 61 million yuan.

During the roadshow, eight cultural envoys from across the city vividly showcased the fruitful results of rural cultural development through their firsthand experiences at the grassroots level. Jiang Xin, stationed in Gangkou Village, Liancheng Subdistrict of Liandu District, presented five photos highlighting the establishment of the “Harbor of the Heart” Music Station and summer karaoke competitions, illustrating how musical culture has contributed to the building of Gangkou as an artistic village. Lou Weigao, stationed in Jin Village, Xiaomei Town, Longquan City, shared how he leveraged the resources of Longquan celadon to develop locally adapted cultural venues, including a Maritime Silk Road Ceramics Exhibition Hall, an Art Gallery, and a Poetry Hall. Meanwhile, Zou Jianli, Chairman of the Lishui Calligraphers Association, applied his expertise by bringing calligraphy to Yadong Village in Youzhu Subdistrict, Qingtian County, offering calligraphy classes to children and passing on traditional culture through the beauty of ink and brush.

At the annual work promotion conference, two representatives from dispatching and stationed units, as well as three cultural envoy representatives from provincial, municipal, and county levels, delivered keynote speeches. Drawing on the experiences and achievements since the program’s inception, participants conducted in-depth discussions on how to innovate systems and mechanisms, develop project platforms, and meet grassroots needs. The conference also announced the list of advisors to the Lishui Cultural Envoy Program, the CPC Lishui Municipal Publicity Department’s leadership pairing arrangements with envoys, and the list of member units and guiding units of the Lishui Cultural Envoy Development Alliance.

Deepening the cultural envoy program is a key initiative for advancing the construction of culturally vibrant rural areas, and an important step toward building Lishui into a high-level cultural city rooted in its unique landscapes. The meeting emphasized the need to thoroughly implement the decisions of provincial and municipal conferences, further enhance ideological understanding, deepen and refine stationed services, ensure pragmatic and accelerated project development, foster innovation in brand building, improve and strengthen institutional safeguards, and accelerate the shift from broad implementation to deep integration. These efforts aim to deliver a series of influential landmark achievements and establish a distinctive model of cultural envoy development with Lishui characteristics.