As a fantastic photogenic spot for tourists, the door of “Tiankong-1” is made of stone slabs and bricks, with dining tables behind. Next to the viewing platform is a newly built two-storey wooden building, whose first floor features agritainment and the second floor houses an exhibition hall of Shibawan Village.
Throngs of visitors pour into Shibawan Village after browsing short videos about it.
Villagers like Ma Jinren began to record the changes of Shibawan Village this year. Without exquisite picture of life, exaggerated plots, artificial design or pastoral beauty, their short videos usually present such plain and real rural scenes as villagers stooping to plow or sitting on fields for a rest.
Shibawan Village offers a window into the improvement of rural life and the efforts of common people.
The village boasts a strong spiritual pillar, which originates from its geographical position.
Located in La’er Mountain with an altitude of over 600 meters in the west of Qianzhou Sub-district in Jishou City, Shibawan Village is named after the trail to it featuring “18 great bends and 99 small bends”.
In the past, local people had to climb mountains to reach the impoverished Shibawan Village, where local products couldn’t be sent out and external supplies failed to come in.
However, the village moved forward slowly in the wave of economic development, and the momentum brought by the road construction gradually faded.
Up to 2021, Shibawan Village started to beautify villages by focusing on environmental sanitation and developing cultural walls. Thanks to the promotion of short videos, villagers have developed Shibawan Village into a popular tourist destination of rural tourism.
