As red cherries dangled from clusters of green leaves against the clear blue sky of May, with the crystal-clear Grand Canal flowing by, Dai Zhiyi, the assistant to the secretary of the Party branch of Shagudui village, Xiji town, Tongzhou district, walked through cherry orchards in the village with her manager, the secretary, mapping the exact locations of cherry trees in the navigation app for fruit-picking visitors in the peak season to come.
A YCA alumna from the Class of 2022, Dai Zhiyi has benefited greatly from the Academy’s interdisciplinary master’s program in China Studies. During her time within the multicultural YCA community, she developed a great concern for humanity, as well as a commitment to society and everyday people. After graduating from the Yenching Academy, Dai was selected to work at Foreign Affairs Office of the People’s Government of Beijing Municipality. Under a unified plan of the Organization Department, Dai was assigned to a post at Shagudui village of Xiji town in Tongzhou district. Zhiyi has since then translated classroom knowledge into everyday practice in Beijing’s new “model villages” program. And through her day-to-day work, Dai has poured her aspirations and inspiration into this ancient village by the Grand Canal.
Secretary of the Youth League Branch of YCA
Dai Zhiyi is from Wenzhou, Zhejiang province. At YCA, she worked as the secretary of the Youth League Branch of the Academy, tempering her organizing and coordinating skills. The home of Youth League members at the Academy, the Youth League Branch of YCA has also played an important role in telling China’s story. To this end, Dai Zhiyi organized different events, such as the Mid-Autumn Day celebration and the Concert at Jingyuan, doing everything herself, from planning, coordinating to resource pooling, to bring the events to fruition.
In April 2021, the student Youth League and Party members joined at Jingyuan Courtyard 3, to share their personal experience with the “Four Histories” (i.e. history of the CPC, history of New China, history of reform and opening-up, and history of socialist development). Drawing on the development of her family business, Dai Zhiyi was deeply impressed by the experience of her father’s generation, hardships and success alike. She noted that the younger generation carries a lighter burden thanks to the conditions created by the previous generations; in turn, the younger generation must shoulder the greater responsibility of advancing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
During her time at YCA, Dai Zhiyi studied consumer behavior and marketing under Prof. Xu Jing from Guanghua School of Management. Through empirical research and market case studies, Dai gained a more concrete understanding of how to develop marketable products that cater to consumer needs. When she designed creative cultural products for Shagudui village and promoted locally produced cherries, she readily put what she had learnt at YCA into practice.
During her two years at YCA, Dai gained a global perspective on rural China and began to think about how to be part of something larger. Through attending events and participating in cross-cultural exchange, she came to see that small as a family or a village may be, it is emblematic of its era. With this in mind, Dai has devoted herself to bringing rural China to the world.
A Journey Starting from the Cherry Orchards
In July 2025, Dai Zhiyi was assigned to work at Shagudui village as the assistant to the village Party secretary. Hailed as the number one cherry-planting village in suburban Beijing, Shagudui is at a critical stage of transition toward high-quality development, under Beijing’s Hundreds and Thousands Project for comprehensive rural revitalization. As part of this project and process, Dai moved from a desk job built on theory and book knowledge to village-level work closer to everyday life of ordinary villagers, gaining first-hand experience of rural China.
Through her household visits, Dai found that dozens of pick-your-own orchards were off the navigation grid; tourists couldn’t reach the orchards, and fruit growers had few visitors. Dai then took innumerable bike trips to accurately pinpoint the remote orchards, taking photos and recording the locations and contact numbers. Little by little, she marked nearly 50 orchards on the map, so that the 120 pick-your-own cherry orchards in the village could be reached by navigation before the peak picking season arrived. The first secretary stationed in the village joked that Dai was a wobbly cyclist who was never frightened by whatever on the road. Thanks to Dai, the orchards in the village are now accessible by navigation, and the fruit growers receive more visitors.
A non-local herself, Dai Zhiyi had to find a way to build rapport with the cherry farmers in the village. Her answer to this was to be sincere and stay humble. In Zhiyi’s end-of-assignment assessment, a former village Party secretary commented, “She is well educated; but she is very approachable.” Zhiyi noted that staying humble and approachable is the best way to get closer to the villagers. She was always ready to help whenever and wherever possible. For example, when a villager’s daughter was looking for a job, Dai shared job leads with her and connected her with people who had taken the exam previously. Trust was gradually fostered between Zhiyi and the villagers in everyday interactions, and as time went on, villagers began to stop her for a friendly chat as she walked through the village.
Dai Zhiyi walked through all the cherry orchards in the village, grasping every opportunity to learn from skilled cherry growers, from varieties grown and harvesting windows to marketing bottlenecks and gaps in supporting infrastructure. As her field notes piled up, Zhiyi kept thinking about the productive cherry-growing area of the village—a 1,300-mu production base that has an annual cherry yield of half a million kilograms. Drawing upon experience from helping with her family business, Zhiyi was intimately familiar with starting small. And calling upon what she learnt at YCA, she knew how important it is to build a brand for the cherries. She then tried to translate her learnings into practice in her village work.
Together with three other graduates like herself, Zhiyi started to upgrade the village’s cherry marketing. They organized pop-up cherry markets in Tongzhou district, not only at communities such as Hanyingyuan, Hanzhangyuan, Xiyijiayuan, Jingshuiyuan, but also Xishangyuan and at Beijing University of Financial Technology (BUFT). More than 500 kilograms of cherries were sold through online and offline channels, plus a total income of over 30,000 yuan from pick-your-own tourism. Zhiyi and her colleagues co-organized a volunteer teaching team with Renmin University’s School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, inviting master’s students, PhD students based in the village, and teachers—all from the school—to open classes for science outreach, cherry industry development, and youth safety. Free English classes are open to the villagers as well. Zhiyi and her colleagues also organized available labor across the village to make cherry pastries, expanding the village’s product lines from fresh fruit to processed and cultural products and opening new channels for the village’s cultural tourism.
Connecting Tongzhou and the World Through the Grand Canal
Benefiting from her study at YCA’s cross-cultural, interdisciplinary master’s program in China Studies, Dai Zhiyi acutely observed that a comprehensive rural revitalization needs not only to make local products marketable, but also to invite the world to the village. To this end, with support and guidance from the Foreign Affairs Office of the People’s Government of Beijing Municipality and the People’s Government of Tongzhou District, Dai invited foreign diplomats to Shagudui village during the event of “Foreign Diplomats Tour Beijing—BMC Special Session.”
On May 29, over 40 senior diplomatic officials from 26 diplomatic corps in China had a cherry orchard tour in Shagudui village. Dai Zhiyi was involved throughout the preparation process, from venue setup, tour route, pop-up booths, to tea break arrangement. The diplomats were highly impressed by the premium quality of so many cherry varieties grown in Beijing, from Rainier, Hongdeng, Lapins, to Huangmi. The visitors were invited to Zhai Fu Coffee—a local cafeteria of Xiji town—for a tea break featuring cherries, such as sparkling cherry americano and cherry Basque. The diplomats were enchanted by the “cherry plus” food and beverage and were fully immersed in the picturesque scenery of this village by the Grand Canal. People’s Daily dedicated a feature article to the event.
On June 2, Yenching Academy organized a Party‒Youth League team-building event at Shagudui village. Four years after graduation from the Academy, Dai Zhiyi hosted the YCA group at the village, feeling as if she were facing her younger self from the university days. When studying at YCA, Zhiyi could hardly imagine that four years later, she would walk through cherry orchards in a village in suburban Beijing, let alone as a guide to the future classes of students to know more about cherries and cherry products. Four years ago, she was a Yenching Scholar who organized Youth League events at Jingyuan; now, she proudly told the development story of a village in suburban Beijing. Zhiyi has lived up to the education and training she received at YCA, serving society and the villagers with her knowledge and skills.
Upon the completion of her assignment, Dai Zhiyi returned to the Foreign Affairs Office of Beijing. Nevertheless, she pays visits to Shagudui village from time to time.
One day, Zhiyi drove to the village to buy some corn. When she pulled over by the road, a villager came to say hello and brought her some homemade baozi fresh out of the steamer. Zhiyi was deeply moved by the genuine warmth of the Shagudui villagers, finding it the best reward for the work of her one-year assignment.
