Diaowo Village

Many of the local villagers are engaged in Countryside Tourism offering home made food and homestay to the mid-class urban residents, who drive here, especially on weekends, to escape the busy downtown life of Beijing. It is worth mentioning the local flavor – Whole Roasted Lambs, grilled by the wood of fruit trees, crisp outside and tender inside, which the urban holidaymakers won’t miss on their unwinding trip to Diaowo Village.

Some villagers still carry on the traditional fruit growing by planting such fruits as persimmon,hawthorn, chestnut,walnut and wild kiwi on the surrounding mountains.

The beautiful scenery, its hospitable people, attract many artists to stay and live here. Now there are seven art studios in the village.

Back to 30 years ago, people would more like to live in an urban city than a rural countryside like Diaowo Village. Now great change has taken place in the countryside around Beijing mainly due to the huge efforts made by the local governments at all levels to develop the backwater areas of Beijing.

The mountains have become greener and the waters cleaner as a result of the environment protection policy introduced and stressed: Random cutting down of rooted trees is inhibited; converting arable land back to a pastoral use with financial support from the governments.

Each household is encouraged to promote rural tourism in providing homestay and homemade food with warm hospitality to the vacationers. The past 30 years have seen the rural villagers getting richer and richer in the countryside around Beijing.

Now she eats the vegetables she plants in her front yard, the geese & chickens in her back yard and fruits on the hill, enjoying living a beautiful, healthy & organic lifestyle. Her only son now works in the city proper of Beijing and comes to join them on weekends.

Let’s enter Diaowo Village and Lady Lee’s family

Lady Lee’s courtyard home is quietly perched in a back lane below the south hill of the village. 

Lady Lee is waiting for us below the hawthorn trees by her courtyard gate wearing a yellow apron.

Now we are inside the courtyard and looking at the gate with her bungalow house at our back. Between the entrance gate and the house is a vegetable garden with two separated plots lined on both sides of the walkway leading from the gate to the house.

Seasonal Vegetables are planted on the two plots. The scenario is often like this: pick the vegetable and have it cooked, a few minutes later, a dish of fried vegetable on a table with vegetable’s soul still on it, fresh!

Lady Lee’s home courtyard has two separated yards – the front yard of the vegetables garden and the back yard of raising geese and chickens. Between the two yards is Lady Lee’s bungalow house with four rooms – kitchen room, drawing-room, bedroom for Lady Lee and her husband and the bedroom for her son and daughter in law.

Lady Lee is taking care of her green vegetables grown in the front yard.  Her back yard is a place for raising geese and chickens, organic poultry with organic eggs.

Lady Lee’s family contracts over 20 persimmon trees and 20 hawthorn trees on a hill not from their courtyard home.

Lao Hao, Lady Lee’s husband, is coming back from their contracted field of persimmon trees and hawthorn trees. 

Growing vegetables, raising geese and chickens and cooking home food are the routine Lady Lee follows in her retirement life at Diaowo Village. She is quite good at cooking.

In her leisure time, she has a pastime of hand weaving. She uses nylon threads to design and make various kinds of animals and flowers – birds, golden fish, butterflies, shrimps, flowers and the list could be longer, kinda of ornaments on  the clothes and just used as pendants or whatever.

She uses nylon threads to design and make various kinds of animals and flowers.

In autumn, its nearby attraction of Jinhai Lake presents you a beautiful sightseeing driving road alongside the lake and the mountains.

More Attractions in Pinggu, Beijing

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Further Readings