More to Be Done to Improve Rural Cultural Services

It's often been mentioned that China's countryside lags far behind its urban areas in economic development. But a cultural gap is as appalling as the economic disparity.

In addition to existent government assistance, experts say much more should be done to enrich the cultural lives of rural residents.

Wu Jia has the details.

The Chinese government is carrying out a movie service trip in a dozen provinces as part of the country's cultural assistance to rural areas.

During the trip, projectionists will bring more than 40 domestically-made movies, including "The Founding of a Republic," to villagers free of charge.

Xu Chunsheng is a film distribution manager under the China Film Group Corporation, an organizer of the movie service trip.

He says local villagers are enthusiastic about the free movie service.

"We held a launching ceremony of the nation-wide movie service trip in Shanghang County, Fujian Province. We showed the film in the evening. Many villagers came to watch the film despite freezing temperatures."

Each year, the Chinese government arranges diversified cultural services for residents living in the remote and poor countryside. Launched in the late 1990s, this cultural assistance ranges from movies, books to stage performances by pop stars.

Rural residents watched free films that amounted to eight million times last year alone.

But some villages are still out of reach of the cultural service.

Zhang Zhanjun is a 48-year-old resident of Xinfangying Village in northern China's Zhangbei County.

"I've never heard of the free movie service in our village. Most of our fellow villagers just watch TV in their spare time while others play cards."

As most villagers choose to work in cities, Zhang Zhanjun says traditional local cultural activities are on the decline in recent years.

"To be honest, I think cultural services in my village are worse than before. In the past, villagers often arranged traditional performances and art competitions among different villages. Now all these have disappeared."

Each year, tens of millions of Chinese villagers flock to cities to earn a living due to the urban-rural economic gap. Some observers say the outflow of people and shortage of funding have contributed to the disappearance of some local culture activities.

Bu Wei, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, says the government should do more than simply bring movies and books to villagers.

"Each locality has its own culture and cultural needs. Local residents have their own way of expressing themselves and aesthetic perspectives. They have various traditional forms of entertainment and culture. But they need support from the government."

The researcher says the government should encourage development of local cultures and make villagers organize meaningful activities to fill their spare time.

The Chinese government has strengthened its efforts to deliver cultural services to villagers in recent years.

Five years ago, the country launched a nation-wide project to build mini-libraries across the countryside. So far, more than seven billion yuan has been allocated and the number of libraries is expected to reach 500,000 within this year.

For CRI, I'm Wu Jia.