"Pear Blossom Courtyard" Agritainment

"Pear Blossom Courtyard" Agritainment

The "Pear Blossom Courtyard" agritainment is located in Lishuchang Village, Longquan Town, known as China's hometown of flowers and plants and a provincial-level famous tourist town. It is a provincially designated tourism specialty village in Henan Province, situated 20 kilometers from the city center.

As early as the 1950s, it was known as a resettlement village, boasting a history of over fifty years. The village has undergone overall planning, featuring neat streets laid out in an orderly grid. The farmhouses are traditional courtyard homes—simple yet elegant in design, fully functional, and comfortable to live in. Most households plant pear trees and other fruit trees in their courtyards, creating unique "Pear Blossom Courtyards," each with its own distinctive style and character. After the reform and opening-up, Lishuchang Village actively adjusted its agricultural structure, leveraging local resource advantages to implement the green "Flowers and Fruits" project aimed at achieving prosperity. This led to rapid development in the production of flowers and seedlings. Currently, the village cultivates over 1,000 acres of flowers and seedlings, encompassing more than 100 varieties. These include nearly 100 types of nursery stock such as Osmanthus fragrans, cedar, Chinese pine, koelreuteria, and torch tree, as well as about 40 types of ornamental plants like crabapple, agate flower, cherry blossom, and cherry. The flowers and seedlings produced here are sold to Beijing, Tianjin, Shanxi, and Hebei, among other regions. The entire village now enjoys a delightful scene where every household grows flowers and plants, and the fragrance of blooms fills the air, making it one of the main flower and seedling production villages in Longquan Town.

The industrious villagers have prospered and built new residential areas, leaving behind these uniquely charming, classic, and beautifully scenic traditional courtyard homes. At the advocacy of the district government, some villagers moved back here to establish agritainment businesses. The village is home to a gathering of folk artisans skilled in root carving, sculpture, paper-cutting, and more, with a simple and warm-hearted local culture. Outside the village, there are water conservancy aqueducts built in the 1950s and 1960s, winter jujube sightseeing gardens, meteorological parks, and more. The unique charm of the Pear Blossom Courtyard offers an invaluable retreat for urban dwellers seeking relaxation and rejuvenation.

Stepping into the "Root Art Farmhouse," visitors are greeted by a variety of uniquely shaped root carvings. Root carving is an art form that uses the natural and twisted forms of tree roots (including tree trunks, burls, bamboo roots, etc.) as creative material. Through conceptualization, artistic processing, and craftsmanship, it creates artistic works depicting figures, animals, and objects. Root carving is a form of plastic art that discovers natural beauty while showcasing creative craftsmanship. As the saying goes, "three parts human effort, seven parts nature"—meaning that most of the artistic form in root carving comes from the natural shape of the root material, with only minimal artificial modification. Hence, root carving is also known as the "art of roots" or "root art." Here, you can admire various works created by local villagers, such as "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," "Eagle Soaring," and "The Majesty of the Dragon."

Upon visiting our farmhouse, you can also see folk paper-cuttings such as "Five Blessings (Bats) Descend Upon the Door." The enduring popularity of folk paper-cutting is largely due to its role in expressing wishes for good fortune and happiness. Geographic isolation, cultural limitations, and challenges such as natural disasters have heightened people’s longing for a prosperous and happy life. Wishes for abundant food, thriving families, health, longevity, and success are conveyed through the art of paper-cutting. Rooted in everyday life, paper-cutting artists express their understanding and insights about life and nature through this unique art form, reflecting their inner emotions. Therefore, this art emphasizes capturing the spirit rather than precise resemblance. Take, for example, the "Five Blessings (Bats) Descend Upon the Door" pasted on the ceiling—the vivid depiction of five bats symbolizes the farmhouse’s aspiration for a better life and reverence for ancient totems.

Each farmhouse here boasts its own unique features. Others include "Pear Garden Homestead" and "Sculpture Art Garden," among others. As a poem goes: “Pear blossoms glisten with morning rain and evening moonlight, their deep fragrance in April resembles a sky full of snow. Fragrant carts and carved saddles bring joy to the agritainment, as visitors revel in the Pear Blossom Festival.”

Lishuchang Village enjoys convenient transportation, with intercity buses running between Anyang and Shanying passing through. It is suitable for urban-rural tourism, self-driving trips, and leisure travel.