A hundred people took the stage together on the night of August 22 at Xiushui Zhuangyuan Village (秀水状元村) in Fuchuan Yao Autonomous County, Guangxi: professional models and representatives of a hundred qipao associations performed side by side for the Guipei Wangu Qipao melody show. The show was the centerpiece of the “Top of the List, Victory at First Try” 2026 Zhuangyuan Culture and Tourism Season, a four-day program from August 21 to 24 that also ran a familiarization tour for a hundred travel agents through the county’s core sights — the Ancient Ming City, Fairy Lake, the Shenjian Stone Forest, Chashan Village, Fuxi Village, the golden nanmu forest and Mao’er Mountain near Guilin.
A Scholar’s Village as the Backdrop
Xiushui has long sold itself as a scholar’s village. Founded in the Kaiyuan reign (开元) of the Tang dynasty more than 1,300 years ago, it is known across the Nanling Mountains (南岭) as the first Zhuangyuan-culture village of the range, its lanes lined with old buildings and stone archways from the exam era. The season used that heritage as the backdrop for Guangxi’s own school of qipao tailoring, the Guipei Wangu style, and organizers wanted the brand’s name to travel with the village’s exam-year story.
The event opened on August 21 with a village visit. Travel agents and guests went first to Fuxi Village to sample Yao (瑶族) customs, then gathered that evening at Jidi Square (及第广场) by the Xiushui visitor center for a Zhuangyuan nuptial banquet (状元囍宴), a tourism promotion built around the “Orange-Scented Fuchuan, Land of the Zhuangyuan” brand, and signing ceremonies that put the Fuchuan route on the books of multiple agencies. After dark, guests toured the Ancient Ming City on an immersive “Ming City Rendezvous” night walk, browsing a Chinese-style bazaar and catching the “Ming City Plays” performances along the way.
The 100-Person Show and a New Training Base
On the evening of August 22, the main show arrived. Alongside the parade, organizers unveiled the “Wangu Qipao Arts and Training Base”, a permanent home for research and training that ties the craft to the scenic area. The night’s program paired four ethnic-minority qipao shows with Yao costume displays, and the daytime on August 22 sent guests through the village’s rituals: blessings at Zhuangyuan Tower (状元楼), a Butterfly Song performance of “Flowing Waters Welcome Our Guests”, a Guiju (桂剧) show at the Rusifu Stage (如斯夫戏台), and a quiet stop at Qinglong Lake (青龙湖). That afternoon, Fuxing Company and the China Association of Travel Services Customized Travel Branch held a session on customized-travel trends, feeding practical ideas into the county’s new itineraries.
August 23 and 24 took the hundred travel agents on to Mao’er Mountain near Guilin for mountain wellness and more Yao hospitality, ending with a bonfire night that sealed the mood. The route from Xiushui’s thousand-year lanes to the mountain’s green ridges sketches a growing Guangdong-Guangxi corridor that organizers call “linking the mountains to the sea” — tourism as the bridge between southern Guangxi’s scenery and the visitor pool of the Greater Bay Area, and a channel for Guangxi products to travel out along with the guests.
What the Travel Agents Said
One travel agent from the Greater Bay Area said after the tour that the village’s thousand-year heritage and the Yao mountains impressed him, that the route had clear market potential, and that he hoped to bring clients in soon. Several guests praised Xiushui as a place where the old buildings read like paintings and the culture sings, arguing that the cross-field blend of Zhuangyuan culture and qipao craft offers a fresh model for reviving old villages and upgrading rural tourism. Guangxi Tourism Development Group guided the event; its publicity department and Guangxi Lvfeng Guilin Investment Co., Ltd. hosted, with the Fuchuan Yao Autonomous County Investment and Development Group, Guangxi Lvfeng Fuxing Investment and Development Co., and Guangxi Guipei Wangu Qipao Culture and Tourism Group as co-organizers, in a government-guided, enterprise-led push that also leaned on media and influencer coverage. With the agreements signed, the Fuchuan route is set to roll out across the participating agencies’ channels.