Environmentalism as Exhibition: The Green Illusion of an Eco-Village
I. The Celebrity Village as Exhibition
Just ten years ago, this was a typical small mountain village suffering from the gradual “hollowing out” of its population. Now, in the standard official parlance, Lush Water Village has forged a “sustainable development path from lush waters and green mountains to ecological industries, empowering the village and enriching the people to further feed back into the ecology”. In the name of nature conservation, it has attracted industries such as design, tourism, cultural creativity, and traditional handicrafts, becoming a model village for rural revitalisation. There is a constant stream of inspections, visits, and study trips, including various government departments from all levels, teachers and students from numerous universities, study-tour agencies, and companies on team-building retreats.
In this sense, Lush Water Village is not merely a place where people live, but a large-scale exhibition in the form of a village. The houses, roads, shops, and fields are all meticulously designed and laid out for guided tours, catering to the outside world’s dual imagination of an ecological idyll and rural revitalisation.
For visiting groups, the village’s operations company provides a basic guided reception service for a fee of 1,000 yuan. Visitors begin with a 15-minute lecture at the visitor centre, during which the story of how Lush Water Village rewrote its own destiny is recounted repeatedly. Then, a guide leads them on a field visit, explaining the sights along the way. The route typically connects the villagers’ council, the Lush Water Nature School, the handicraft museum, the craft workshops, the hiking trail entrance, and the youth centre, ending at the reservoir nestled in the mountains—the “sacred land” of nature conservation. Almost every day, I see coaches following this same route, carrying a diverse array of people who stop at each point to listen to different guides deliver almost identical content.
Just as exhibits in a gallery have labels, the village possesses a wayfinding and signage system created by designers. Starting from the village name sign at the entrance, it focuses the visitors’ attention on the key locations that constitute this model of rural revitalisation, providing a short explanatory text. Most other signs point towards the increasing number of commercial establishments, such as restaurants and B&Bs. The language used to mark these locations serves the outsider. For instance, the traditional gathering place for village shops and vendors is labelled as the “CBD”, even though locals are more accustomed to using its original name, the “Under-Bridge Market”.
As the amount of information for tourists has grown, these signs have become larger and taller, creating a spectacular sight. The original signage system actually featured clean, low-saturation colours with smaller layouts and fonts, blending harmoniously into the rural landscape without appearing abrupt or oppressive. However, these signs, which could only be read by pedestrians, failed to meet the needs of businesses wanting to drive footfall; they required larger layouts and fonts to attract people driving by.
II. Manufacturing a Green Illusion
From a “polluted village” to a “village of the future”, the story of Lush Water Village’s green transformation is often spoken of with admiration by outsiders. However, a friend named Yugang, who returned home to farm, questioned whether Lush Water Village is truly an “eco-village”.
The story of how Lush Water Village became an “eco-village” is as follows: before 2015, for a long period, the villagers’ primary livelihood came from managing moso bamboo forests upstream of the village reservoir and selling bamboo timber and shoots. In the pursuit of yield, they overused fertilisers and herbicides, eventually causing non-point source pollution, such as excessive nitrogen and phosphorus levels in the reservoir.
At that time, an environmental organisation partnered with the government to lease several hundred acres of moso bamboo forest upstream of the drinking water reservoir from the farmers, halting the use of fertilisers and pesticides in the bamboo groves, thereby improving the water quality. The project raised donations from a tech giant and a financial firm to pay the rent for the bamboo forests. The tech giant was able to use this to cultivate a public image of being “environmentally friendly”, even though its e-commerce business generates massive amounts of plastic waste every year.
Following that, with the arrival of external funding and personnel, the conservation project incubated the “Lush Water Nature School”, guiding villagers to run guesthouses and farm-stays to meet the dining and accommodation needs of the increasing number of visitors. Simultaneously, the conservation project connected with a design firm through the planning of an exhibition, which eventually led the firm to relocate its entire operation to Lush Water Village, bringing in dozens of employees and transforming a derelict socialist-style assembly hall into a non-profit handicraft museum.
A few years ago, the village collective established a rural operations company and hired a “Village CEO” responsible for attracting more businesses and design studios. The operations company also planned various events, ranging from art and music festivals to sporting competitions, and introduced amusement and art installations such as “Egg Burger Party” and “Cats Scaling the Sky” to decorate the village during holidays.
These new ventures have undoubtedly breathed new life into the village, yet they seldom touch upon agriculture—the most fundamental aspect of rural life and the one most directly connected to nature.
Beyond its status as a social media hotspot, Lvshui Village is a region for bamboo production and rice farming. The lower hills are covered in vast groves of Moso bamboo, valued for both its shoots and timber, while small patches of early bamboo and Buji bamboo are scattered across fields and behind houses. In the flat river valleys between the mountains lie thousands of mu of farmland. In previous years, driven by subsidies and profits, much of this arable land was converted into nurseries. Recently, under the Permanent Basic Farmland Protection Policy, most of these flatlands have been returned to cultivation.
However, like many Chinese villages, Lvshui is rapidly drifting away from the traditional rural bond and stewardship of the land. Today, most young people have left the village for work, and those born in the 1980s or later often lack farming experience. Consequently, the land has been consolidated and leased to a few large-scale outside operators who employ modern chemical farming methods, relying on fertilisers and pesticides for mass production.
Thus, when you look upon the green or golden rice paddies of this land, you might perceive a scenery that heals the soul. But once the filter is removed, one discovers the charred field ridges hidden beneath the ears of rice—the result of excessive herbicide dosage or concentration. The fertiliser bags and pesticide bottles strewn across the fields reveal a profound alienation between man and land.
Despite branding itself as an eco-friendly sanctuary, Lvshui Village has yet to escape the shadow of chemical agriculture. Whether in China or globally, the intensive use of fertilisers and pesticides leads to soil acidification and compaction, an increase in pests and diseases, and a decline in organic matter. It creates a vicious cycle of dependency for farmers and ultimately results in pesticide residues and heavy metals exceeding safe limits in the food consumed by urban populations. Today, when we speak of ecology, these are the stark realities we must first confront.
When a village no longer loves its land, and no longer nurtures the health of its soil and water from the roots up, the title of “eco-village” becomes little more than a castle in the air.
Beyond agricultural production, the lifestyle in Lvshui Village is increasingly mirroring the high-energy, high-consumption patterns of urban life, without having formed any alternative, sustainable planning: public transport is scarce, making the car the primary means of transport, with many undertaking long commutes between the town and the village; the ubiquity of e-commerce means delivery hubs are piled high with parcels every day, generating vast amounts of packaging waste; native vegetation in some areas has been cleared to make way for cherry blossom viewing groves and monotonous green belts… Aside from the local vegetables grown by elderly residents still available in the market’s direct-sales area, the place feels remarkably like the American suburbs—a lifestyle built upon high per-capita energy consumption.
Consequently, when guides tell visitors that “the ecology in Lvshui Village is excellent, you can even see fireflies in summer, and the Green Water Nature School offers ‘firefly night-watching’ courses,” they overlook the increasing light pollution, soil sealing, redevelopment, and water pollution caused by pesticides—all factors that threaten the survival and breeding of fireflies. Visitors marvel at the “pristine” rural landscape, yet the negative impact of human activity on wild flora and fauna receives no genuine attention or discussion.
The success story of Lvshui Village began with the improvement of drinking water quality, an achievement that deserves recognition. However, the subsequent development path, centred on the logic of “display”, deviated from the original intentions of ecological protection and even obscured more urgent systemic issues within the village’s ecology. In the rush to propagate the narrative of Lvshui Village’s success, the government, the media, village operators, and tourists have collectively manufactured a green illusion in the sense of tourism consumption.
III. A Model for the Future of the Countryside?
Lvshui Village’s self-promotion and commercial operations have undoubtedly helped attract capital, traffic, foundations, and official support, driving economic growth and improving the overall appearance of the area. But can this developmental experience truly be replicated by other villages? Can learning from this experience actually point towards a more ecological and endogenous exploration of the rural future?
The route in Lvshui Village’s publicity—moving from nature conservation to rural tourism—sounds simple and seamless, but it cannot be copied everywhere. When the water protection project intervened, the timing, location, and people were all in perfect alignment: the moso bamboo forests on the mountains were already facing a situation where “the elderly could no longer manage them, and the young did not know how”. As the bamboo market shrank and profits plummeted, the conservation project could easily lease the bamboo forests from villagers at low prices to carry out protection efforts. Relying on a convenient location and beautiful environment, villagers transitioned smoothly from managing bamboo forests to the tourism and service industries, suffering little loss and even increasing their income.
I once lived in a village where fruit cultivation was the primary livelihood, and the extensive use of chemicals severely polluted the well water used by locals. It was said that many villagers suffered from kidney stones, and some chose to buy bottled water to drink. However, the high added value of fruit as a cash crop allowed locals to stay in their hometown rather than migrate for work. In many more places, people’s primary source of income comes from activities that severely pollute the environment—and it is precisely these places that provide the metal minerals, food, and materials indispensable to modern life… Facing these more numerous and complex realities, balancing community livelihoods with overall rural ecological health often requires a longer cycle and repeated adjustments; the success path of Lvshui Village cannot be easily replicated.
Another key topic frequently mentioned in the case of Lvshui Village is that, unlike the decline seen in “hollow villages” inhabited only by the elderly and children, young people are arriving or returning to Lvshui Village. The arrival of new villagers, the return of the second generation, and the incubation of new industries attest to the self-sustaining capacity of this development path: starting from water protection ten years ago, Lvshui Village naturally became a place where people chose to stay and settle, rather than being a tourist attraction deliberately developed through government planning or capital land-grabs. The village operators attempt to create the impression that this is an organically developing community with a slow-paced rural life, rather than an “Instagrammable village” for people to simply take photos.
However, many “new villagers” and returning youths have jobs directly tied to tourism, with little connection to the land. They open restaurants and coffee shops, work for tourism reception agencies such as the village operations company, or provide various intangible cultural heritage handicrafts and study courses. The economic sources of many “old villagers” have also begun to depend on tourism. They renovate villas on their residential land to run guesthouses, or set up stalls in tourist hotspots during weekends and holidays. Many other young people simply reside in Lvshui Village; they are either digital nomads or lead a dual urban-rural life, working in towns and returning to the village on evenings, weekends, or holidays.
Whether through rural tourism or a migratory lifestyle between town and country, the village is merely an extension of urban work and consumption systems—a backyard for the city. Under this development model, although Lvshui Village has achieved strength and prosperity for its people, there are concerns about whether it can truly deliver on its promise of “sustainability” in the future.
An organic village, of course, should not rely solely on agriculture; it should have a richer variety of industries and divisions of labour. But when agriculture—and other industries endogenous to the countryside—are neglected to cater to the external demands and gaze of city-dwellers such as artists, designers, consumers, and the media, the final effect of this “exhibition” of the countryside is often further “real-estate-isation”, gradually drifting away from the “ecological” concept proclaimed at the beginning of Lvshui Village’s story.
Currently, Lvshui Village can still maintain an emotional connection to the land through the local knowledge of the older generation, struggling to achieve a balance with the village’s commercial operations. But in two more generations, when most villagers no longer farm or have settled in cities, where will the culture and traditions of this village go? And where will its natural ecology lead?
Life in Lvshui Village continues, still full of vitality; only time will give us the answer.
All images in this article were taken by the author
Editor: Zheng Yuyang