This file photo taken on March 29, 2022 shows Yu Chi-Hsuan (L) introducing to foreign visitors the Song Dynasty-style tea whisking skills at a tearoom in Hangzhou Luyuquan tea culture theme park in Hangzhou, east China's Zhejiang Province. (Xinhua/Duan Jingjing)
As spring breezes carry the aroma of tea through the misty valleys of Jingshan in Hangzhou, the capital of east China's Zhejiang Province, Yu Chi-Hsuan is busy planning a tea harvesting tour for tourists ahead of the Qingming Festival, which falls on April 4 this year.
In the tea fields of Jingshan, home to the famed Jingshan tea that dates back to the Tang Dynasty (618-907), the 36-year-old from China's Taiwan region, now a cultural tourism practitioner rooted in Zhejiang, is brewing up a story of cross-Strait connections.
Born in Taipei to Hakka parents, Yu grew up hearing stories of her ancestral ties to Meixian in south China's Guangdong Province, where her grandfather's ancestors lived.
At the age of 11, she traveled to the Matsu Islands to take part in cultural exchanges with people from the Chinese mainland, which planted the seeds for her later deep bond with the mainland.
While studying in Japan, Yu met her life partner, who is a native of Zhejiang Province. Despite their initial plans to settle abroad, Yu clung to a dream. "I have always hoped to have an opportunity to settle down in the mainland," she said.
That opportunity came in 2018 when a recruitment notice from Hangzhou's Yuhang District, seeking graduates from top global universities, redirected her trajectory.
Yu returned to China in 2019 and set her sights on Jingshan, which has a deep connection to the Japanese tea ceremony.
"When I studied a course on Japanese tea ceremony in college, I discovered that its origins traced back to a Zen Buddhist temple in Jingshan," Yu recalled.
While in Japan, Yu participated in Kyoto's World Heritage tourism planning, and she boasts expertise in Taiwan's award-winning cultural design projects.
Delving into "The Classic of Tea," the first known monograph on tea in the world, Yu found striking parallels between the Jingshan tea ceremony, a UNESCO-listed intangible heritage, and the Hakka Leicha (pounded tea) from her childhood.
"I realized that Chinese tea cultures share the same roots," she said. "In developing the Song Dynasty-style tea whisking experience course in Jingshan, memories of my grandfather preparing a bowl of tea for me when I was young came rushing back."
She then set out to promote the rich heritage of Chinese tea culture. Within two years, she and her team created a cultural tourism icon featuring Tang Dynasty scholar Lu Yu, also known as the Sage of Tea, and introduced a new Chinese-style tea beverage brand "Lu Yu's Tea."
In 2023, Yu expanded her work to the rural guesthouse industry, transforming vacant farmhouses into a cluster of homestays that blend ancient Liangzhu heritage and Song culture with modern designs.
Her project, which preserves the charm of the original townscape while upgrading facilities, has won multiple provincial tourism awards and created economic opportunities for local villagers.
"Rural revitalization isn't just about renovating houses. It's about letting culture take root and ensuring that local communities benefit," Yu told Xinhua.
She likens Zhejiang's villages to her grandma's handmade "eight-treasure rice pudding" -- traditional yet innovative, inclusive and full of human warmth.
Visitors from Taiwan can immerse themselves in intangible cultural heritage experiences like crafting paper umbrellas on ancient streets, witnessing the fusion of agriculture and smart technology at digital farms, or seeing auditoriums at some local primary schools renovated into art hubs.
"Every experience here is full of surprises," she said. "I hope more Taiwanese friends will come here to see, feel and experience its magic."
Now a familiar figure in cross-Strait cultural exchanges, Yu has shared her life and work in nearly a hundred activities, always beginning with the characteristic introduction: "I am Yu from China's Taiwan, a new citizen of Hangzhou. Destiny has brought me here, and I share the same surname as Yuhang."
She believes that Taiwan's young people should not be bystanders; instead, they should actively engage in the mainland's rapid development.
"The vast mainland can accommodate the dream of Taiwan's young people, and the Taiwan Strait can not block compatriots on both sides from sharing the dividends of development," she said.
Editor:Qiu Xiaochen
