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Escape to Beizhai

Now, when roaming its inner-city hutong, its World Heritage treasures or when travelling by taxi among its gleaming skyscrapers and modern architectural monuments, it’s easy to forget that the municipality also has a vast and historic rural culture that is also being touched and transformed by modernization. In some ways, the rural transformation may rival that of the urban area in overall socioeconomic importance. They are, at least, intertwined; one depends on the other.

One place to view Beijing’s rural modernization and to enjoy a day, a weekend or even longer relaxing outside the city is the Beizhai Ecology and Folk-Custom Village, based in a traditional Chinese village located northwest of the Huairou Reservoir and the intersection of the Jing–Cheng Expressway and National Highway 101 in Huairou District’s Qiaozi Township. Beizhai's leadership, headed by Party Branch Secretary Xie Changming, in 1996 decided to change the village's fortunes by turning to “ecological tourism,” and it appears to be succeeding magnificently.

But we must use the term “village” loosely here. To be sure, any visitor to Beizhai will experience the natural beauty of rural Beijing, its blossoming fruit trees and flowers, its evergreens and willows, its flowing streams and mountains and rural creatures like ducks, chickens, cattle and even wildlife like pheasants and hawks, but all these things and more can be experienced without any of the hardships typically associated with village life. Pleasant diversions available in Beizhai are almost endless: fruit picking, fishing, hiking, horseback riding, cycling, bodybuilding, X-sports training (including shooting), golf, tennis, swimming, music, the local market and numerous fine restaurants (try the wild vegetables with barbecued trout). Spend your night sleeping on a farmer’s kang or in a comfortable bed for as little as 15 yuan per night (plus meals) or choose one of the area’s fine lodges or hotel rooms, designed to suit any taste. Enjoy board games with your family or simply a quiet visit with friends.

For a feel of real rural China, try one of the villages’ 13 folk-custom culture courtyards or one of their 68 folk-custom farmhouses. For another level of service based in the rural environment, try the Goose and Duck Ranch in the  southern part of the village or the plush Renji Mountain Lodge and golf course on its north.

In the hills north of the village, Beilong Mountain Lodge offers quiet rooms overlooking farmland in the valley below. Here you can feast on local fare such as wild vegetables and barbecued trout. An even more “farm-like” experience can be had at the Luming Lake Holiday Ranch, where its restroom-equipped, air-conditioned cabins surround an authentic courtyard. Here, you can swim or fish nearby and your children can marvel at chickens, ducks, geese and even an emu or two. Strawberries and other vegetables and fruit are grown in greenhouses overlooking the ponds. The village is popular among tourists from home and abroad. About 60 percent of its rooms for tourists are booked during weekdays and it’s always packed on weekends and national holidays.

“Our prices are very reasonable,” said Cao Yuzhen, a woman in charge of the ranch’s reception station. “We only charge 15 yuan for a night’s stay per person, 50 yuan each including three meals and a night’s accommodation.”

If you’re not sure of what’s right for you and your family, ease your mind by relying upon the official Beizhai Reception Station. The staff there will help you find a proper place to stay and access to the activities of interest to you. The reception centre also manages and oversees all the courtyard and farmhouse tourism business operations.

“We have established standard fees and charges for all our rooms and services and we strive to ensure the quality and standards for restrooms and kitchens, all to the tourists’ best interest,” Cao said.

At the Goose and Duck Ranch, visitors can rest and relax at the ranch’s lodge or take a dip in its large swimming pool. For the more active, tennis, boating, horseback riding, skiing, kart riding, volleyball, hiking and other activities abound, according to the season.

Aside from being beautiful and nestled among rolling hills and mountains, the Renji Mountain Lodge could hardly be more unlike the Beilong Mountain Lodge and Luming Lake Holiday Ranch. The lodge, which opened in 2006, is a luxury golf club that overlooks a gorgeous, Australian-designed, 18-hole golf course (with 18 more being planned). The course features water hazards and white-sand sand traps along its well-manicured fairways and around its undulating greens. Smiling women caddies and electric golf carts that travel along smooth, paved tracks are available to ensure an easy-going golf outing. Reservations are required, but the public is welcome. Lifetime memberships in the club are available beginning at 240,000 yuan.

Vivian Gao, the club’s sales director, said, “We’re not simply building a golf course. We want people who come here to experience the culture and the atmosphere of this place.” There’s more to life than golf, however. In addition to its marvellous club house and driving range, bar and club, the property features a small lake surrounded by hills. At its northern end is the two-story Chengguan Tower, a traditional-style tea house that overlooks a Ming-styled boathouse/fishing pavilion that juts into the lake. Also scattered about the property are traditional Chinese tables where one might rest below shade trees and sip tea, enjoy a card game or simply observe the aquatic birds flitting about in the lake’s shallows. In the Chengguan Tower people can enjoy a guzheng (a traditional Chinese stringed instrument) performance while sipping tea.

Also overlooking the golf course are new residential condominiums and a new “mansion-style” hotel being built to handle overnight guests. From either, the Great Wall at Mutianyu can be seen snaking along mountains about 10 kilometres away. Also nearby are the Hongluo Temple and many other sites of interest.

But the local people, the laobaixing, have not been overlooked in this ambitious’ village’s farsighted plans. As it developed with the influx of tourists, the villagers began to take more time to enjoy themselves. In 1997, when Xie and others realized even the village’s yangge dance team had no place to practice, the village committee spent 360,000 yuan (about US$50,700) to build a courtyard for this and other village activities. But soon, this centre proved to be too small. The committee spent 3 million yuan (US$389,000) more to build a new 1,600-square-metre Culture Centre for the use of its residents that was completed in October 2006.

The new Culture Centre complex includes a sparkling clean medical centre that provides first aid and emergency care services (backed up by an available ambulance for more serious cases). In the clinic doctors Shen Shuxiang and Ruan Guiyin treat 20–30 people a day for illnesses such as fevers or colds. The medical centre includes a pharmacy that sells quality drugs at prices the local people can afford. Clean beds are provided for those who need more extensive care. Nearby, in another part of the complex, local residents flock to the culture centre day and night to use its digital movie room, library, activity centre for the elderly, its dancing and singing halls and recovery centre for the disabled. Various kinds of free training courses are provided in the centre’s computer centre (with its dozens of computers) every night, including English, legal, cooking computer skills and other subjects. During the day, people sing, practice yangge, play ping pong or board games or simply rest and watch the others, as on this day when a small dance group of young to middle-aged women led by Ms. Pei was found dancing to music expected to be played during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. They danced in a room and fitted with musical sound equipment and a large mirror at one end. Their audience sat on benches lining the room’s walls.

Ms. Pei said the group could not imagine performing during the Beijing Olympics despite their love of the music. She said, “We are not a professional team. We just form up because of interest. We practice whenever we have the time, three to four times a week.”

Yao Jianrong, deputy head of the village committee, with evident pride said the cultural centre was “so influential even people from neighbouring villages came to join us.” The culture centre is full of people on most nights but people have been known to take the action to the square outside when the weather allows.

“On the 28th of every month, we also have a party on the square where the villagers themselves are the performers,” Yao said.

And the best part is: the public is invited to join in the fun.