Lately, a small village got famous because of a short video, attracting numerous young people to visit. It is the Manle Village of Manbie Village Committee, Menglong Town, Jinghong City, Xishuangbanna. 

Giving a bird's eye view of Manle Village, people can see the roads painted into different and beautiful colors, and the blue roofs traveling among bright colors, just like a small village in a fairy tale. Walking into the village, each wall is painted with different themes. An old wall or a dried mango could be a landscape.

Walls and roads become "canvases".

At present, nearly 5000 square meters of wall paintings have been painted in Manle Village, which covers an area of 80 mu. All this was done by Yan Wenjiao, a young man of the post-90s generation. He said: "there are many colors and patterns on the pencil skirt of Dai girls. There are rich elements such as water plants, flowers, birds, and animals. I want to show these traditional cultural elements by painting." As a result, the walls and roads in the village became Yan's "canvas". He has been starting a journey of "graffiti" since then.

From the viewpoint of villagers, what Yan has done is very simple. However, the easy thing is not only a key step to beautifying Manle Village but also a long-term attempt to put the idea of combining culture and tourism into practice. Today, Manle village has also become what everyone calls a "village full of art".

The creative market gets popular.

In fact, the cultural innovation "product" like Manle Village is a small part of Xishuangbanna. When it comes to cultural creativity, the creative market with local culture and tourism characteristics cannot be missed. Among them, the Gaozhuang West Shuangjing Night Market is well-known by people at home and abroad.

The creative market integrates three elements of creativity, art, and the culture of the night market. Creative craftsmen bring their designed tie-dyeing, cloth art, pottery, weaving works, and other original cultural and creative products to the scene for display and exchange. In addition, there are a series of art performances, such as band performances, street performances, Southeast Asian song and dance performances. Recently, the landmark cultural creative ice cream has become a must-taste food when visiting the Gaozhuang night market. It has various flavors of litchi, chocolate, and strawberry. There is always a busy and bustling scene at the market. 

Cultural and creative products display characteristics of national culture.

During the creative Yunnan 2021 Cultural Industry Expo last year, there were 12 cultural enterprises with cultural and creative products and tourism products in the Xishuangbanna exhibition area. Many cultural industry boutiques were very eye-catching, including intangible cultural heritage culture displays, national costumes, Dai pottery, Dai paper, and so on.

Dai pottery, one of the representatives of China's primitive pottery making, has exquisite modeling, unique artistic value, and technological level. If the water is preserved in Dai pottery, it will not deteriorate, and it will be sweeter to drink because of the characteristics of the pottery. 

Existing for a history of thousands of years, Dai paper is known as the living fossil of papermaking. In 2006, Dai papermaking technology was included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list and the first batch of intangible cultural heritage protection list in Yunnan Province. After several years of product innovation, Dai paper can also be used to make oil-paper umbrellas, handicrafts, Kongming lanterns, and other items. At the same time, it is also a good paper for packaging Pu'er tea.

With the opening of the China-Laos railway, it is more convenient to go to Xishuangbanna. In the next step, Xishuangbanna will combine the market demand brought by the China-Laos railway, give full play to the advantages of Xishuangbanna's tourism industry, and actively cultivate and create landmark cultural and creative products. 

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(Editors: Rachel, Ines)