Champion diver’s home village catapulted into tourist hotspot
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Maihe Village, about 3 kilometers from Zhanjiang West Station in south China’s Guangdong Province, is now better known as the “champion village.” For it is the native home of Quan Hongchan, who earned two diving gold medals during the recent Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
She was first catapulted into stardom during the Tokyo Olympics three years ago. The 14-year-old diver’s stellar performance quickly turned her home village into a tourist mecca.
Since getting a selfie with Quan herself is so difficult, posing for photos with the diver’s portraits has become obligatory for hordes of tourists now flocking to her home.
One such poster, at the gate to her home, was adorned with oversized Chinese characters stating: “Friends, you are welcome.”
The influx of visitors has been an unexpected but welcome windfall for the over 100 stall keepers that have emerged in a space of less than one week.
The hype about this snack street in online feeds is drawing more visitors, vendors and e-commerce livestreamers, numbering several thousands on an average day.
A recent online poll showed 75 percent of the surveyed found this (phenomenon) “hard to understand.”
Sudden windfall
Notwithstanding the sudden windfall for vendors, there is general consensus that the noise, the crowds and the peeping cameras are disturbing Quan’s family.
The village roads have been upgraded, widened and repaved since the Tokyo Olympics, and suggestions about the champion are much in evidence, in festooned red streamers, or in vendor titled “gold medal baked pork,” or in milk tea carts adorned with pictures featuring Quan famously biting a gold medal.
The ware purveyed here are cosmopolitan, ranging from New Orleans chicken feet, noodles, toys, to ice-cream.
To sustain the fever, ingenious villagers have implied that the pair of trees at Quan’s home are auspicious, capable of bringing fortune and success.
E-commerce livestreamers are cashing in, too, with one livestreamer revealing that online traffic can be guaranteed as long as your camera is trained on the hordes threading their way among the stalls.
Some livestreaming teams have even been told to settle in Zhanjiang. One company specializing in marketing “tuoluo cake,” a Cantonese-style mooncake, dispatched no less than 11 employees to the village, all clad uniformly in green attire, marketing the local delicacy by poling on their shoulder two bamboo baskets of the cakes.
Parents and children comprise a major segment of the visitors. They usually take photos as early as 6:30am, when it is still possible to drive through, and then beat a hasty retreat.
One old couple visited the place with their granddaughter who was only 3 months old, so that she might have good fortune by association. Another father got there with his two daughters, who both like diving, in the hope the duo might qualify for the next Olympics.
A 92-year-old man was escorted to the village by his family all the way from neighboring Maoming City. Although the old man was hard of hearing, he managed to mumble, tremulously, “a national treasure,” upon hearing Quan’s name.
A tour agency in Maoming has come up with a one-day package tour of Quan’s native village, priced from dozens to hundreds of yuan. In its promotions, Maihe Village is referred to as the Olympian or the champion village.
To cope with the sudden influx, at least five policemen are deployed at the village to direct traffic, with special policemen planted at the gate of Quan’s home. Cadres, social workers, sanitary staff, student volunteers and a dozen villagers are also summoned to help maintain routine and order.
Quan Zhenwei, a 63-year-old villager, is responsible for cleaning up the carpark at 150 yuan (US$21) a day. He used to work as a security guard, but was laid off a year ago due to his age.
Even an octogenarian was awarded a job as a cleaner; armed with a cleaning bag and a pair of tongs, he earns over 100 yuan a day.
Booming business
Meanwhile, the snack stalls are expanding from the epicenter of Quan’s home, to the periphery.
Acting on tip-offs from her relatives in Maihe, Xu Xue, 26, from a neighboring village, managed to set up a breakfast stall here, making 300 to 400 yuan a day, which contributes significantly to the welfare of her three children.
Quan’s two-story home is being closely watched, with mobile phones held high, selfie sticks thrust through the fence, and eyes prying from every direction.
The local Zhanjiang Daily ruled out any possibility of Quan’s family being significantly disturbed by the crowd, claiming that her home is a new tourist destination not to be missed.
Situated far from Guangzhou and Shenzhen, Zhanjiang, which is relatively underdeveloped, lies almost at the bottom rung in terms of gross domestic product among its peers in the province.
In August, CCTV’s agricultural channel opined on “How Quan’s hometown could better leverage the sensation, given the craze about the diver?”
Prior to this sensation, the 2,500 residents of Maihe, mostly surnamed Quan, got by by growing fruit trees, doing odd jobs, or running small businesses.
All villagers, from kids to the elderly, seem pleased by the influx of visitors, even those who do not profit directly. The most commonly heard replies include “We like the noise,” or “We are not disturbed.”
In a recent CCTV interview, when asked how she should be treated, Quan replied: “I hope to be treated as a normal person, and do not want to be surrounded by so many people.”
(The story is adapted from an article published on ifeng.com.)
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