On December 19th, more than 700 students on study travel from Jingzhou Dongfanghong Middle School visited Qu Yuan’s Hometown Cultural Tourism Zone of Zigui County in Three Gorges Reservoir Area. Dressed in Chu costumes, the students performed a grand apprentice ceremony, read the Chuci and sang Evocation Song collectively. Also, they watched the large folk situational musical drama Our Dragon Boat Festival in order to experience the rich Bachu culture and to know more about Qu Yuan and his patriotism. The travel team is the 51st of its kind that the scenic spot has received this year. So far, and the spot has received more than 110,000 such students.

　　Located in the new county of Zigui, the Zone, taking as its focal point the promotion of Qu Yuan culture, the tracing back to the ancient charm of Chu along the Xiling Gorge and the appreciation of the local physical beauty, has in recent years integrated Chinese traditional culture with Bachu culture, Qu Yuan culture and the Three Gorges culture, and has organized a variety of studying activities, such as worshiping Qu Yuan, performing apprentice ceremony, reading classics, rowing dragon boats, making Zongzi and sachet, listening to lectures on sinology, and watching folk situational musical drama Our Dragon Boat Festival so that students can have something to visit, to think, and to learn from. Owing to its unique cultural appeal, Qu Yuan’s hometown has attracted more and more student visitors from other places and it has become an ideal destination for teenagers on study travel.

　　Ma Shangzhao, the chairman and general manager of Zigui Culture and Tourism Development and Investment Co., Ltd. and the Three Gorges Pinghu Company, says that the next step for the zone is to make better use of the resources and explore a development scheme combining the traditional culture with modern means and fashion elements, and to take Double Heritage protection and utilization as its own responsibility, so as to build the scenic spot into a stage of people’s lives, a grand cultural view garden of Qu Yuan and a new business card for study travel destination. (Correspondent: Lei Yong; Photographer: Zhang Haiyan)