Civility key to revitalization of countryside across nation

When Zheng Runqi, actor and producer of the movie Dear You, shared stories from the movie about how the traditional qiaopi, or overseas remittance letters, carry the trust and integrity that nourish rural civility, his words resonated deeply with the audience at a conference held in Linyi, Shandong province on Thursday.

"These letters are not just paper. They hold our family values, our local character and the footnote that defines our rural civility," he said.

The two-day conference on promoting social etiquette and civility in rural areas brought together officials, community leaders, scholars and farmers to discuss how rural civility — considered as positive social norms, ethical values and civilized customs — is key to the overall revitalization of the countryside.

While villages across China have seen great improvements in infrastructure and living standards, outdated habits still hold back progress, said participants.

Tackling these practices is a vital task that affects not just rural development but also social progress and individual well-being, they said.

One example is how affordable wedding ceremonies have replaced much more expensive traditional celebrations and habits.

"A young couple in our village recently held their wedding with 40 tables of guests, and the total cost was just over 6,000 yuan ($885)," said Nie Xiaoyan, head of the women's federation in Daicun village, Linyi's Lanling county.

Before, it usually cost at least tens of thousands of yuan, creating a burden for young people, she added.

To support such change, the village invested more than 2 million yuan in building a public dining hall and a memorial hall, where both happy and somber family events can now be hosted at a lower cost.

This development highlights a long-standing problem in many parts of rural China, where weddings were once turned into a contest of "face" with families competing over bride prices, lavish banquets, luxury cars and cash gifts, often draining savings or pushing them into debt. Crude rituals and wasteful spending sometimes turned celebrations into financial traps.

"The goal of transforming outdated customs is not to do away with social bonds, but to prevent them from becoming a burden of debt," said Wang Chuanxi, head of Daicun village.

The conference also featured parallel sessions in five villages across Linyi city, covering topics such as preserving productive farming traditions and promoting rural cultural prosperity.

An example of that heritage comes from Yuanyang county in Yunnan province. For over 1,300 years, local people have carved terraced rice fields into the mountainsides, creating a unique farming ecological system integrating forests, villages, terraces and waterways.

Pu Rong, the county's deputy head, said villagers have kept alive traditional practices such as water diversion and distribution with slotted timber, ditch patrols and forest management.

"As long as the trees on the mountains are safe, the water for the terraces will never run dry," said Pu. "Farming culture is not frozen in time. It is the living source of rural revitalization."

Last year, China's total grain output remained above 700 billion kilograms for the second straight year. Rural per capita disposable income has grown by 1.9 times since 2012, according to this year's national report on rural civility construction released during the conference.