A team of 20 members from Tsinghua University, China Agricultural University, Wuhan University, Jiangnan University, and Dalian Art College participated in rural revitalization activities in Dongzhongdu Village of Sishui County, Shandong Province, from January 7 to 19.
The team was divided into five groups—Art and Design, Architecture, Public Benefits, Academic, and Publicity. While seemingly separate, these five groups often interacted and coordinated with each other to carry out various activities of rural revitalization.
It was the Tsinghua members’ fifth visit to Sishui County since 2020. With time, they have deepened their rural revitalization efforts in the county. In the beginning, they focused on the construction of the Rural Revitalization Center in Sishui, while today they offer multiple-dimensional services such as education services, enterprise services, construction services and community services, catering to local needs.
Art and Design
The Art and Design Group further improved the work they had carried out in the summer. Based on the hand-painted map they had drawn in the summer, they made a topographical map, converting the sketch into a complete route map. Meanwhile, taking documents related to the 110th anniversary of Tsinghua University as a reference, they improved the “Visual Identity Guidelines for the Rural Revitalization of Longwan Lake.”
Hand-painted map
The Group also carried out new projects. They, for instance, collaborated with the designer from the Art Granary to help design new packaging of crispy meat for a local company, Jining Hongrun Food Corporation.
They simplified the company’s meat package design, strengthening its visual impact. Drawing inspiration from the historical story of Sudaji, they picked out a branding slogan, “A Bite of Crispy Meat,” for the meat product.
In Chinese, the word “crispy” is pronounced as the surname of Sudaji, and "A Bite of" conveys the lightness of the food.
As for the product’s logo, they designed the animated character of Sudaji and processed the image geometrically to make it look attractive and interesting.
Logo Design
After completing the logo design, they drew corresponding illustrations and finalized two packaging designs.
Packaging Design One
Final Composition
The second packaging design uses different color schemes. The combination of blue and yellow makes it more exotic and appealing.
Packaging Design Two
Final Composition
Presentation
On January 17, the Art and Design Group presented their final designs to the directors of Hongrun Food Corporation. The directors gave them favorable feedback and stated that their corporation was interested in in-depth cooperation with the group in the future.
Besides designing the package of "A Bite of Crispy Meat" for Hongrun Food Corporation, they were also involved in the packaging design of a local coffee product, “Drip Bag Coffee,” in Dongzhongdu Village.
Packaging Design
Inspired by the mountains in Sishui, the Group added the compositions of mountains in the packaging design, coloring them with blue and yellow to give the package a fresh and natural look.
Final Composition
During the practice, the Sishui Team held a live stream to promote sweet potatoes of Sishui County. The Art and Design Group used the photos taken by the Publicity Group and transformed them into an elaborate poster to use during the live streaming. Meanwhile, they made posters for the annual "Si Yi Wang Wei" Music Festival.
Poster for "Si Yi Wang Wei" Music Festival
Impressed by their previous designs, the Rural Revitalization Center of Tsinghua University asked the Art and Design Group of the Sishui Team to design a poster that reflected the center’s key vision. They accomplished the task in collaboration with the Wendeng Team for the Rural Revitalization Center of Tsinghua University.
The Key Vision of the Rural Revitalization Center of Tsinghua University
Additionally, the Group also designed the logo for aesthetic education of the Sishui County Micro Public Welfare Association. They selected green as the theme color, which represents hope and love, and added the element of Dandelion to symbolize the popularization of aesthetic education.
Final Composition for logo
Architecture
Meanwhile, the Architecture Group completed two important projects: the design of the NiShanLuMing Pastoral Complex, and the interior design of the aesthetic education space of Luci Children's Home.
The Architecture Group went to the NishanLuming Pastoral Complex for a three-day investigation. They inspected the overall situation of the pastoral complex, and put forward some existing problems in terms of the current design scheme. Then, they analyzed the pastoral complex from several perspectives: settlement pattern, public space, building yard and so on. After reading numerous references, they studied the rural health industry of this pastoral complex comprehensively and sorted their research into a book.
NiShanLuMing Pastoral Complex Project
In this project, they proposed that the pastoral complex can be divided
In this project, they proposed that the pastoral complex can be divided into diverse modules: LuMing Business District, Agricultural Products Experience District and Forest Recreation District, for effective use.
After the preliminary measurement of Luci Children's Home aesthetic education space, the Architecture Group proposed four concept spaces with different subjects, Studying the Nature of Things, Step by Step, Box Space and Mondrian.
Aesthetic Education Space of Luci Children's Home
Layout Plan of the Interior Design
Public Benefits
The Sishui Team continued its cooperation with the Sishui County Micro Public Welfare Association. On the evening of January 10, the Public Benefits Group paid a visit to the Association and had a thorough discussion with Chairman Sun Jiantao, Secretary-General Tian Shusen and the volunteers from other universities.
On January 11, the Public Benefits Group visited Xiaochengzi Village in Shengshuiyu Town under the guidance of the Association’s volunteers.
Li Xinru, one of the volunteers, introduced the current development of the village and showed them around the Confucianism Lecture Hall of Xiaochengzi Village.
On January 12, the Public Benefits Group had an online interview with Chen Yiming, a volunteer at the Confucianism Lecture Hall of Xiaochengzi Village.
Visit of Xiaochengzi Village
During the May Day holiday last year, the Sishui team had interacted with senior-high-school students of Sishui County. This time, the Public Benefits Group held a symposium to share their learning experiences with junior-high-school students.
Sharing experience
Innovation of Education Services
Last year, the Sishui team had held several offline courses at Luci Children’s Home for rural children.
However, this year, due to the effect of the epidemic, they recorded their classes in cooperation with the Micro Public Welfare Association so that they can be viewed by children in the future. The members of various majors recorded classes covering different topics, such as Art, English, Airlines, etc.
Academy
The Academic Group explored the realization of the Party branch leading cooperative. In Sishui County, both Dongzhongdu and Nanzhongdu villages chose to build greenhouses as the form of cooperatives, with the guidelines of the village Party branch. However, these two cooperatives displayed totally different states: decline and prosperity.
Theme
Following the field research, the Academy Group introduced the concept of embeddedness to explain the process of external resources grafted into the village collective.
Concept of Embeddedness
After analyzing three stages of each cooperative, the Academy Group discovered two existing problems in the development of cooperatives and proposed corresponding solutions. They suggested that the Dongzhongdu village cooperative could learn the pattern of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), and the Nanzhongdu village cooperative could imitate the practices of the Yijia Village Cooperative to overcome its bottleneck.
Publicity
The Publicity Group took photos of local customs to promote Sishui County and produced videos to spread its local brands and culture.
The Publicity Group launched the "Our Lunar New Year" activity. Students made dumplings with the local villagers and celebrated the arrival of the new year together. After the activity, the Publicity Group made relevant videos and published related WeChat posts to promote local culture and customs.
"Our Lunar New Year" Activity
Chen Yiming, Volunteer of Confucianism Lecture Hall
Livestreaming
Since their first social practice in 2020, the Sishui Team has shot nearly 20 documentaries for Sishui County. Students spread their stories and voices through videos to inspire more college students to join the team and strive for rural revitalization.
List of All Participants
Source: Department of Foreign Languages and Literature
Editors: Guo Lili, Sangeet
