Jiangou Village- Red tourism

A small village located near the Miaofeng Mountain 50 miles outside of Beijing, Jiangou is an emerging tourist destination. While the temples on the mountain are used by religious pilgrims, Jiangou caters to a different kind of pilgrimage, those individuals who want to feel more connected to their communist roots. Red tourism is a subset of cultural tourism and has been supported by the government since 2005. Many red tourist sites are found in eastern China and are in rural or poor areas of the country. By celebrating the historical routes of the party, many villages have seen economic growth due to an increase in tourism.

During Japanese occupation, Jiangou had a secret communication station for the Communist Party. Radio transmissions as well as other supplies such as food and medicine were transferred from Jiangou to Beijing. The site of the communication station has now become a museum where visitors can learn more about the site, its historical significance, and celebrate their communist roots.

While visiting Jiangou, the ChinaVine team had the opportunity to meet and talk with Mr. Zhao, now an interpreter at the Pingxi Transportation and Information Museum, who told us more about the history of the village and his work with the then emerging communist party in the 1940s. Mr. Zhao spoke of his personal involvement with the communist party, acting first as a messenger for secret messages sending them to nearby villages and secondly, escorting important figures outside of Jiangou. He talked about the harsh conditions villagers experienced before the building of new China and the level of secrecy that was needed in order to perform their mission at the communication station. While many red tourism sites have centered around Mao Zedong, Jiangou was home to other key figures of the red revolution including the foreigner Michael Lindsey who helped educate villagers on radio transmissions.

Unlike other red tourism sites, Jiangou is in its initial stages of tourism development but has seen an increase in tourism to the village. While we were at the museum, we witnessed a group of people who rented out the hall the museum in order to sing traditional communist songs. Our field school residency occurred just after Foundation Day, celebrating the 90^th anniversary of the party. It is interesting to think about the shift of opinions younger generations have about the CCP and Mao opposed to earlier generations and how there are represented in what the team experienced both in Jiangou Village as well as in the city of Beijing.