Inspiration everywhere

Walking through Caijiapo, Yu can also see dozens of murals, each measuring over 100 square meters and featuring various artistic styles, including surrealism and impressionism. In the paintings she can see traces of Vincent van Gogh and Pablo Picasso, as well as flowers and farmers.

The wheat fields around the village are also dotted with modern artworks, including a tree-shaped windmill titled Flourishing Flowers and a graffiti work called Lost Tower.

The history museum, meanwhile, provides a good source of nostalgia, featuring photographs recording the lives of the villagers. And in the village art museum, there are artworks fashioned from peeled corn cobs and sickles normally used during the wheat harvest.

Yu says her favorite place to go in Caijiapo is the open-air Zhongnan Theater, a semicircular, amphitheater-style facility that was previously a brick kiln. Over the past five years, she has also spent many happy hours watching avant-garde dramas and listening to jazz music and symphony concerts, all for the first time.

"I have liked the arts since I was a child, but I only used to watch Qinqiang Opera and yangko (a folk-style Chinese dance). Now the village often holds various art performances, and I don't miss any of them," she says.

This year, Yu got up onstage and sang a song of her own composition to the rhythm of the kuaiban, bamboo clappers. The lyrics expressed her gratitude to those who brought this burst of creativity to the village: "Art academy teachers and students come year by year. Each farmer smiles with joy that's clear. The baton passes fast, no delay. Successors ensure the luster will stay."

The teachers and students mentioned in Yu's song are among the chief promoters of Caijiapo's transformation.