The 2026 Mass Culture Brand Development Conference was recently held in Lincang, Yunnan province, bringing together 100 exemplary innovations in mass culture from across the country. Two brands submitted by Huaihua, namely “International Land Port · New Voice of the Silk Road” and “Come to Mayang for the Dragon Boat Race”, were selected. They were also the only two brands from Hunan province to make the list this year. “International Land Port · New Voice of the Silk Road” was further chosen as one of the 12 outstanding cases to share its experience at the conference, bringing the fresh spirit of Wuxi culture to the national stage.
Approved by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Mass Culture Brand Development Conference was launched in 2023. Its four editions have been held in Chengdu, Sichuan province; Fengxian, Shanghai; Sanya, Hainan province; and Lincang, Yunnan province. It has become one of the country’s leading platforms for exchange and showcasing in the mass culture sector, with broad reach and considerable influence. Officials from culture and tourism departments, heads of cultural centers, mass culture experts and representatives of cultural brands from all 31 provincial-level regions gathered to discuss how cultural brands can enrich daily life and nourish cities.
From “Huaihua Has Its Own Show” and the “Influencers in 100 Villages” program to “International Land Port · New Voice of the Silk Road” and “Come to Mayang for the Dragon Boat Race,” Huaihua has had four mass cultural brands selected as national exemplary innovations over three consecutive editions. It is one of the few cities nationwide—and the only one in Hunan—to have made the list for three years running.
At the innovation and development seminar held during the 2026 Mass Culture Brand Development Conference on the afternoon of October 13, the Huaihua Cultural Center delivered a presentation titled “International Land Port · New Voice of the Silk Road: Huaihua Deepens Its Cultural Roots and Takes the Arts to the Sea.” It introduced to a national audience how an inland city is exploring international cultural exchange. The project is overseen by the Huaihua Municipal Bureau of Culture, Tourism, Radio, Television and Sports and implemented by the Huaihua Cultural Center, with Hunan Jiji Commercial Management Co., Ltd. as a supporting organization.
Huaihua has built the “New Voice of the Silk Road” brand around its international land port. Its cultural journey began in 2022 with a Lantern Festival performance, “The Sea Lies Beyond the Mountains,” for workers building the port. Since then, the brand has steadily deepened its roots and expanded its reach.
Deeply engaged in the Belt and Road Initiative, Huaihua has used trade links to forge connections over long distances. It has staged 10 performances overseas and in other parts of China, and brought the “Spring Rain Project” to Li County in Gansu province and Zhaosu and Tekesi counties in Xinjiang. The song “Songs Like the Sea on Huangyan Mountain” was selected for a showcase of outstanding works from across the Taiwan Strait. Artist Tong Shiming’s work “Clear Skies over a Miao Village on the Cliff” won the Golden Key Award at the Berlin International Art Biennale. At the Xiapu Ocean Poetry Festival, Huaihua’s contribution “Bringing the Blue Home” was published in Poetry. The city’s culture and tourism authorities have also brought culture and tourism together with consumption, holding nearly 100 port-area cultural tourism events to turn cultural buzz into urban vitality.
In line with the strategy to develop the Greater Zhangjiajie International Tourism Zone, Huaihua has explored a new five-part mechanism for public participation in public cultural services. This helps ensure port-area cultural performances can be put together at short notice, staged when needed and delivered with flair. Huaihua is a designated pilot organization for the national program to nurture rural influencers. The National Public Cultural Development Center has brought training in new public-centered literature and art to the city, as has the China National Opera House with its performances for the public. In recent years, Huaihua has organized 160 performances in the port area and nurtured more than 1,200 rural influencers, whose livestreams and other new public-centered cultural content have reached 2,800 broadcasts.
To attract outside creators, Huaihua has sought common ground between the international land port’s spaces and cultural programming, stimulating new forms of youth consumption. “Empowering Yushui River’s Colorful Stones through the Arts” has become a much-told story, while the “Liangmuyuan” filial piety brand has won praise from international visitors. A number of digital culture companies serving markets beyond Hunan have emerged in Huaihua, and the “Ten Rousing Work Songs” have become some of the most popular content in the city’s digital cultural center. The Huaihua Cultural Center is also building “Huahua,” a reserve team of young performers, recruiting unemployed young arts workers, students earning money through work-study programs and key staff from community training organizations. The team has become a highly sought-after “hot ticket” in the performance market.
Wang Quanji, an academic committee member of the Cultural Center Development Research Institute at the National Public Cultural Development Center under the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, said the project offers a model for how public cultural services in inland regions can support national strategies and foster cultural exchange. It is far-sighted, embedding a mass cultural brand in the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor and opening a path for culture to reach overseas markets with the idea that “culture follows the land port in, and cultural creativity travels with the trains.” It also introduces new mechanisms that inspire public enthusiasm for culture, enabling ordinary people to become cultural creators and communicators, with rural influencers’ livestreams forming a sustainable grassroots network. And it starts small, using intangible cultural heritage products such as tiger-head hats and Dong brocade bags as cultural tokens, allowing modest products to carry traditional culture.
To understand “Huaihua Has Its Own Show,” it helps to start with the city’s rich heritage of traditional opera. In June 2017, Huaihua Daily ran a full-page article titled “A Look at ‘Huaihua Has Its Own Show,’” noting that “Huaihua has six national-level items of intangible cultural heritage in the traditional opera category, ranking among the top prefecture-level cities nationwide.” Hunan Publicity and a monograph published by Tsinghua University Press later also featured the brand through the lens of traditional opera. Huaihua has since held local opera showcases and the “Huaihua Has Its Own Show” online culture festival, keeping traditional opera in the spotlight in the new era.
At the end of 2022, to promote high-quality development of public cultural services in Huaihua in the new era, the municipal government adopted a proposal from members of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference to feature the revitalization of “Huaihua Has Its Own Show” in its work report. At the start of 2023, the Huaihua Municipal Bureau of Culture, Tourism, Radio, Television and Sports quickly developed the brand into a concrete program, expanding from urban communities into the countryside and continuing to deliver an upgraded version of public cultural services.
In 2023, Huaihua held “Huaihua Has Its Own Show: Community Arts Showdown” as part of the second Huaihua Arts Festival. Neighborhoods across Hecheng district took part, with more than 100 performances on stage. In 2024, auditions expanded to 281 communities across all 13 counties and county-level cities and districts in Huaihua. A total of 1,545 teams entered, reaching more than 3 million people. In 2025, the revamped “Huaihua Has Its Own Show: Village Song Festival” held 56 competitions and one interregional showcase. Its performers came from all walks of life and local communities. The festival covered all 13 counties and county-level cities and districts in Huaihua, and brought in outstanding village-song teams from Hunan’s 14 prefecture-level cities and autonomous prefectures, as well as other parts of China, injecting fresh rural cultural energy into the fifth Hunan Tourism Development Conference. “Huaihua Has Its Own Show” was selected as a 2024 China Mass Culture Brand Model Case. In 2026, “Huaihua Has Its Own Show: Village Song Festival” was selected as one of the second batch of national model cases for high-quality development of public cultural services. The “Huaihua Has Its Own Songs: Village Song Festival” is now underway across all 13 counties and county-level cities and districts in Huaihua.
Jin Jianping, deputy head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Huaihua Municipal Committee and Party secretary and director of the Huaihua Municipal Bureau of Culture, Tourism, Radio, Television and Sports, said the bureau carefully plans “Huaihua Has Its Own Show” well in advance each year. The program brings together a coordinated effort by municipal and county-level culture and tourism authorities, participation from radio and television organizations, creative and instructional support from cultural centers at every level, and local residents in the spotlight. It has become a flagship brand for deepening the integration of culture and tourism and advancing high-quality development of public cultural services.
In 2025, “Implementing the ‘Influencers in 100 Villages’ Program to Bring the Arts to Rural Communities,” organized by the Huaihua Municipal Bureau of Culture, Tourism, Radio, Television and Sports and implemented by the Huaihua Cultural Center, was selected as an exemplary innovation at the Mass Culture Brand Development Conference in Sanya.
The program to nurture rural influencers is a new channel for bringing high-quality cultural resources directly to local communities. Huaihua accelerated its efforts in October 2023. Seizing the opportunity to become a designated demonstration organization for the national rural influencer program, the city was among the first to draw up an overall plan for nurturing rural influencers and issue an implementation plan for the “Influencers in 100 Villages” program. It established the Huaihua Cultural Center as its main base and cultural centers in all 13 counties and county-level cities and districts as branch bases, offering support and training. The city held training courses for online hosts and for the “Influencers in 100 Villages” program, while local authorities across Huaihua provided hands-on training. More than 1,200 rural influencers have been nurtured to date. The program was also named one of Huaihua’s top 10 reform and innovation cases, and Huaihua was the only place in Hunan selected for the 2025 national “Rural Influencers Go to the Grassroots” initiative.
The “Influencers in 100 Villages” program is becoming a source of endogenous drive for rural revitalization. “Country Girl,” from Laozhai village in Longcheng township, Tongdao Dong autonomous county, now has 3.5 million followers and a 26-member team that earns 48 million yuan a year. In Zhijiang Dong autonomous county’s Guchong village, former village Party secretary Long Siqing invited more than 70 online influencers to a livestream e-commerce competition, “Village Livestreaming Boosts Guchong,” in an orange grove spanning 1,000 hectares. He also connected live with Wang Guoyang, Party secretary of Houdaishan village in Xinchang county, Shaoxing, Zhejiang province, to exchange experience in livestreaming from villages. Orders topped 3,000 that day, with sales exceeding 60,000 yuan. Today, livestreams and short videos are active every day on the “Influencers in 100 Villages” exchange platform. Last year, Huaihua hosted a national wrap-up and experience-sharing event for the “Rural Influencers Go to the Grassroots” initiative.
“Culture’s bells ring out, bringing gold from a thousand miles away.” Hunan’s rich resources for strengthening its cultural soft power include its long history, revolutionary heritage and vibrant contemporary culture. Huaihua is using mass culture as a bond to connect tradition with modernity, cities with villages, and culture with everyday life. Since 2024, the city has been invited to share its experience six times at national mass culture conferences and seminars. Looking to the future, Huaihua will continue to inspire people through culture, bring cultural benefits to the public and foster development through culture, writing a new chapter in Wuxi on the path toward high-quality development of mass culture.
(Translated by Yang Hong)