Why is the population of this small town in Northeast China growing against the trend, under the background of population outflow

There is a set of data worth paying attention to: at the beginning of the 13th Five Year Plan, the population of Meihekou City in the southeast of Jilin Province was 300000; In the year ending the 13th Five Year Plan, the population of the urban area reached 420000. Against the backdrop of population outflow from Northeast China, Meihekou has become one of the cities with a sustained net inflow of permanent residents in the urban area.

More and more young people returning to their hometowns for employment and entrepreneurship are migrating to Meihekou, as well as talents from related industry chains across the country and residents from surrounding counties and districts choosing to settle in Meihekou, contributing to this population growth curve.

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In recent years, Xia Jize, a young man from Northeast China, has a natural sense of pride in his hometown.

Xia Jize, 28 years old, was born in the small city of Meihekou in the southeast of Jilin Province. In 2013, this county-level city was designated by Jilin Province as a pilot for expanding power and strengthening county reform, becoming a provincial-level directly managed county. In 2021, Jilin Province has given this city a new positioning as a leading demonstration zone for high-quality development and a modern regional center city.

The former Meihekou was a coal city. Like some resource depleted cities, Meihekou has encountered difficulties such as shrinking resource industries, weak momentum, ecological degradation, and population outflow. Nowadays, Meihekou has transformed into a park city where emerging industries gather and tourism influencers check in everywhere.

The positioning of this city is constantly improving, and its vitality is constantly shining. More and more young people from Meihekou, born and raised like Xia Jize, are considering and returning home with knowledge and insight. Returning to their brand new hometown, they began to resonate with the city, repositioning themselves for the future, and growing new expectations for their own lives and the development of their hometown.

Hometown is improving, enough to fulfill the entrepreneurial dreams of young people

At present, Meihekou is a popular tourist destination for nearby residents and tourists. You can visit the Northeast Never Nightly City, taste delicious food from all over the country, eat at the water restaurant in People's Park while watching water screen movies, and also go to Zhibei Village to search for Kanto culture

After the establishment of Meihe New Area in 2021, Meihekou took 17 days to build the "Northeast Never Nights City", 66 days to build Zhibei Village, and 18 months to create a 4A level ecological scenic spot called Hailong Lake Park that integrates agricultural irrigation, leisure tourism, and urban backup water sources. These "overtaking on bends" practices have rapidly transformed and developed Meihekou into an emerging tourist city.

In addition to the tourism industry, Meihekou is gradually forming an industrial system consisting of four leading industries: medicine and health, food processing, commercial logistics, and modern services, as well as three emerging industries: tourism, equipment manufacturing, construction and its supporting industries, and N characteristic industries.

After finishing university in Changchun, Xia Jize, like many young people, chose to venture and experience in the south. As a computer major, he worked for a year in an Internet company in Taizhou, Zhejiang, in charge of network signal optimization. He often has to go on business trips and has been in a tense and busy state, and rarely has a circle of friends.

Xia Jize has been paying attention to the development and changes in his hometown. Gradually, he came up with the idea of returning to his hometown to start his own business. "Instead of working hard and leaving his hometown, it's better to go back to his hometown and do something by yourself.".

In 2019, with the support of her parents, Xia Jize resigned from her job and returned to Meihekou. As the only child in the family, my parents are very happy that Xia Jize can return to his hometown.

Someone said he couldn't continue working outside, so he returned to the small town. Xia Jize disagrees with this statement, "My hometown is getting better and better, it's the same every year. Why don't I come back?"

For Xia Jize, returning to the small town does not mean he has lost his life ideals. He believes that his current hometown is enough to accommodate his entrepreneurial ideals and pursuit of a happy life.

Returning to Meihekou, Xia Jize attempted to sell imported rice cookers through e-commerce. Now, his online store has a monthly turnover of about 100000 yuan, and his net income is higher than that of working in the south.

After returning to his hometown to start a business, he obtained a free workstation and a 60 square meter, 3-year free warehouse in the government department's entrepreneurship park. In addition, he also successfully applied for a 200000 yuan entrepreneurial loan subsidized by government departments. This makes Xia Jize feel the sincerity of his hometown in attracting and retaining talents.

During the four years of returning home to start a business, Xia Jize had eight high school friends who also returned to Meihekou one after another. Some of them have been admitted to local civil servants, while others work in pharmaceutical companies.

In 2022, Xia Jize got married and his wife is a civil servant. His parents paid him a down payment to buy a wedding house in a city area. Later, the couple bought a small apartment for rent as a financial investment.

27 year old Jia Jinzhong is the youngest village party branch secretary in Meihekou. After graduating from university, he applied for a public welfare position at the government of Evolutionary Town in Meihekou City, and later went to work at Evolutionary Village in Evolutionary Town. Two years ago, the two committees of Evolutionary Village were replaced, and the young and hardworking Jia Jinzhong was elected by the villagers as the village branch secretary and village director.

Evolutionary Village is Jia Jinzhong's hometown. Compared to the support for entrepreneurial youth in the urban area, he places more emphasis on government policies that support the development of rural industries and the growth of young cadres. Taking advantage of the momentum of rural revitalization, he wants to do something in the countryside.

When Jia Jinzhong first returned to his hometown to work, he dealt with various departments in the town and often had to take transportation to deliver a document face-to-face. In the past two years, Jia Jinzhong has felt a significant change. When he went to various departments in the town to handle affairs, there were more young people of his age, and work efficiency improved. There are currently 5 members of the team in Evolutionary Village, of which 4 are under the age of 35.

Emerging small cities hold street dance competitions

In August, Liu Qiang, a street dance entrepreneur and president of the Meihekou Street Dance Association, was "busy and proud". His street dance school initiated and hosted the 7th Meihekou City Street Dance Competition, attracting more than 500 participants from 19 representative teams from Jilin Province.

This year is the seventh time that Liu Qiang has initiated the Meihekou Street Dance Competition. What motivated him was that his idea of promoting street dance culture was recognized and supported by relevant departments of the local government.

At the scene of this street dance competition, relevant officials from local Communist Youth League organizations, education bureaus, and cultural tourism bureaus came to the stage for the competition.

Seven years ago, Liu Qiang planned to establish a street dance training school after studying street dance teaching in Beijing. Liu Qiang's hometown is located near the county and city of Meihekou. When inspecting the market, he found that the Meihekou street dance teaching market was still blank at that time. Liu Qiangmeng had the idea of seizing the market, and together with his partner Yang Jie, he established two street dance school campuses in Meihekou. Currently, there are over 500 regular students.

"Not all entrepreneurial projects need to operate in developed cities to be better." Liu Qiang believes that emerging cities actually have more opportunities.

Starting a business at Meihekou, Liu Qiang experienced the tolerance and support of this small town for entrepreneurs. When the street dance competition was held for the first time, there was no suitable venue. Liu Qiang tried to communicate with the Municipal Cultural Center, but the result was smoother than he had expected.

In order to promote street dance culture on a larger scale and enhance the influence of street dance competitions, Liu Qiang invited local Communist Youth League organizations, cultural and tourism bureaus, and education bureaus as organizers of the competition, and received positive responses. Moreover, these departments also provide venues and policy support for Liu Qiang.

For Liu Qiang, he can do what he wants with peace of mind at Meihekou. In recent years, the street dance school he founded has continued to grow in scale, becoming a witness and participant in the rapid development of Meihekou.

The second street dance campus founded by Liu Qiang and his partner is located on Songjiang Road in Meihekou City. A few years ago, it was still a wasteland. Nowadays, there are numerous tall buildings and complete living facilities.

Liu Qiang's partner Yang Jie is from Xi'an, and he also bought a house in Meihekou and settled here. In Liu Qiang's street dance teacher team, there are also people from Hebei, Shandong and other places. They chose to settle here one after another due to their career and love for this city.

At the street dance competition in early August this year, Liu Qiang found that many children participated, accompanied by their parents. After the competition, the parents took their children to play at the Meihekou River. Liu Qiang said, "The tourism attraction of the city has attracted a lot of popularity for our street dance competition."

Liu Qiang hopes that more young people can come to Meihekou and experience the sense of achievement of entrepreneurship and pursuing dreams.

Xu Haochen, born in the 1990s, is a Hani young man from Yunnan. He runs a handicraft stall in the northeast city of Meihekou. In 2022, he saw the investment information of Northeast Never Night City online and discovered business opportunities, so he carried his luggage to Meihekou. "The bustling city has a large number of people and low booth costs, making it very suitable for young people to start their own businesses," said Xu Haochen.

In order to increase support for entrepreneurship among college graduates, Meihekou has formulated and introduced the "Implementation Measures for Attracting College Graduates to Meihekou for Employment and Entrepreneurship". Relying on local e-commerce and entrepreneurship parks, more than 150 college student entrepreneurs have been recruited. In addition to providing free entrepreneurship training, each person will receive a monthly entrepreneurship fund of 3000 yuan.

At the same time, focusing on the adjustment of rural industries and the "Ten Million Project", Meihekou has issued the "Ten Policies to Support Returnees in Entrepreneurship and Promote Rural Revitalization", providing policy support in loan interest subsidies, project support, entrepreneurship rewards, and other aspects, guiding college graduates to participate in the front line of rural revitalization.

These practical policies have attracted many young people from outside the region to come to Meihekou for entrepreneurship and employment.

Using knowledge and insight to change one's hometown

Time did not disappoint Li Shanshan's choice to return home and become a farmer. Nine years ago, she chose to become a new professional farmer from a chip development engineer.

Li Shanshan graduated from Xi'an University of Electronic Science and Technology as a graduate student and became a chip R&D engineer at Huawei Technology Co., Ltd. in Shenzhen. The villagers often tell Li Shanshan's father, "A golden phoenix has flown out of our village.".

For Li Shanshan, despite the carp leaping over Longmen, she still couldn't let go of the countryside, among which rice played an important role.

When Li Shanshan was a child, she didn't realize the uniqueness of the rice in her hometown. Only when she went out did she realize that the quality of the rice in her hometown was excellent and highly praised.

In Li Shanshan's childhood memories, during the busy farming season, the villagers would gather together to harvest the rice fields, which could not be seen at a glance and could be harvested in just a few days. Despite the low level of mechanization and tiring farm work at that time, the rice fields, village roads, and farmhouses were filled with the joy of harvest and a strong sense of local sentiment. Although Li Shanshan has considerable income in first tier cities, the tense pace of life has never been able to give her a sense of security.

When she was in college, Li Shanshan's vision gradually opened up and she had the idea of helping her parents sell their hometown rice better. Li Shanshan's father has not read many books, but has always studied scientific farming. He has written rice notes more than a foot thick, and when discussing planting techniques with rice experts, he is not shy.

According to relevant records, over 120 years ago, the rice produced in Meihekou was known as the "imperial grain and imperial rice". Spanning history, in 2019, Meihekou City was rated as the "Hometown of Chinese Imperial Grain and Rice" and included in the "List of Regional Specialty Chinese Cuisine".

Li Shanshan believes that such good rice needs to be sold at a better price and in a larger market. After returning home, Li Shanshan positioned her rice products in the high-end urban market based on her father's rice planting professional cooperative, adhering to green, standardized planting and organic planting.

She established the official website of "Mopan Lake" rice and opened various online sales platforms. She also presents information on the various stages of a grain of rice from sowing to the dining table to buyers through text, pictures, and videos.

After returning home, the number of young new professional farmers around Li Shanshan gradually increased. She began collaborating with neighboring planting cooperatives to establish a planting cooperative association, jointly developing rice brands, and changing the traditional mode of independent operation between farmers and cooperatives. With the promotion and popularization of intelligent agriculture, Li Shanshan's major in communication and information systems will be more useful.

32 year old Lu Huidi is a mother of two and also a public welfare and environmental protection entrepreneur. After returning from abroad, she worked in the promotion and application of garbage classification in Meihekou. She specifically inspected the local landfill and felt that the extensive disposal method of garbage had many drawbacks. So, she wanted to pass on the garbage classification concepts and methods she had experienced and learned abroad to her hometown people.

But in this emerging city, the concept of garbage classification seems to be somewhat advanced, and Lu Huidi's entrepreneurial path is not smooth. At present, Lu Huidi's entrepreneurial team consists of 5 people, of which 4 are part-time workers. She takes care of her children while sticking to her favorite career.

Nowadays, entrepreneurial projects have made some progress. In the past two years, she has won the support of two public welfare foundations and conducted 34 large-scale environmental protection activities in Meihekou City, including community and campus waste classification, environmental protection and low-carbon promotion, beach cleaning action, smoking control action, and enterprise visits and research. Next, Lu Huidi is also preparing to collaborate with the community to promote the garbage classification concept one by one in each community.

After harmless treatment at the back end, the toothpaste skin can be processed into chairs, tables, flower pots, backpacks, and amusement facilities in parks... Lu Huidi likes to talk to people around her about how garbage can be turned into treasure, hoping that garbage classification and utilization can be promoted more in her hometown.

According to data from the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau of Meihekou City, from 2020 to 2022, about 16000 students were admitted to universities in Meihekou City, and about 11000 returned home for employment. The number of returning home workers in 2022 has increased by nearly 1000 compared to 2021.

Whether the development of a new type of city in Northeast China is attractive and cohesive, young people are voting with their feet.