Village offers a playful way to learn about nature

Kindergarten students ran wild with polychromatic kites in the vast paddy fields in Changqin village, in Jiaxing city, East China's Zhejiang province, in mid-April.

It was a school day, but the children were able to go out of the classroom to have a special learning experience in the open air.

One of them, six-year-old Xiao Rui, exuberantly introduces to his peers and teachers his handmade kite, on which he has painted a racing car zooming through a little forest.

"It feels great that I made something that can fly in the sky," Rui says with pride.

Right after the kite session, he and his classmates went on to explore what the countryside has to offer, such as sketching before the paddy field and making rice milk coffee in the village.

They are among a rising number of students who have sought experiences in the Yuliwendao program initiated by Xiangli Maike, a company focusing on integrating rural culture with travel.

"We've seen more than 10,000 participants every year," says Jiang Yefei, co-founder and general manager of the company, which has spearheaded rural study tourism initiatives since 2023.

The Yuliwendao program reconnects urban visitors, especially families, with agrarian traditions via hands-on experiences like rice cake crafting, rice milk coffee workshops, and mud-fishing in paddy fields. "Our philosophy is from knowledge to nourishment — learning through doing," explains Jiang, noting how activities subtly embed lessons about crop cycles and cultural, social, and economic practices related to the production and consumption of food.