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Rice-Paddy Art on Black Soil: Overseas Chinese Media Visit Shenyang's Rice Dream Space
Reporter 王子龙
On September 20, the 2026 'Chasing the Chinese Dream, Discovering Liaoning' overseas Chinese-language media delegation traveled to Xingtai Xibo Ethnic Town in Shenyang's Shenbei New District to visit Rice Dream Space, a well-known local agritourism complex, in search of a living example of rural revitalization on this stretch of black soil. A national 4A-rated tourist attraction, Rice Dream Space is widely known as a filming location for the movie 'My People, My Homeland,' and has earned the title 'Hometown of China's Rice Paddy Paintings' for its distinctive rice-paddy art.
Spanning 1,550 mu (about 103 hectares), the park blends creative agriculture, cultural tourism and leisure, farming education, and Xibo ethnic folk culture. Using GPS-guided rice-transplanting technology, the technical team plants multiple rice varieties in different colors to 'paint' enormous patterns across the vast paddies, with the artwork's theme refreshed every year; June through October marks the best viewing season. The delegation climbed the park's landmark Langmeng Tower to look out over tens of thousands of mu of rippling rice paddies, taking in a sweeping expanse of land art that left visitors in awe.
Beyond the paddy art, Rice Dream Space also invests heavily in ecological farming and folk-culture preservation: a rice-duck-crab co-cultivation model recreates the look of traditional farming, while the Xibo Plaza regularly hosts events such as a Mud Festival and a Farmers' Harvest Festival, filling the air with Northeast China's rural character. The park also offers a wide range of activities — a mini rice-paddy train, water rafting, archery, an antique waterwheel, a sand beach, a family playground and a koi pond — combining sightseeing, leisure and educational trips, and making it a favorite getaway on Shenyang's outskirts.
Rice Dream Space sees itself as more than a scenic spot — it also positions itself as an agricultural science education base, regularly running farming-experience and study-practice activities, and its self-developed rice-paddy-art technology has already been exported to multiple provinces across the country. On-site farmhouse restaurants and a rice-product marketplace let visitors enjoy authentic local dishes while getting an up-close feel for the region's deep-rooted rice culture.
As the sun dipped low and gilded the rippling paddies in gold, delegation members remarked that this stretch of black soil had written the most vivid footnote to rural revitalization — one living rice-paddy painting at a time.
