Shushan Village in Tongan Town, Suzhou High-tech Zone, is located on the shores of Taihu Lake. In August, Shushan Village is adorned with Cuiguan pears hanging heavily on branches, bending them with their weight. Sunlight filters through the pear leaves, and the fragrance of fruit mingles with the fresh scent of earth. Walking along the Shushan scenic wooden boardwalk up the mountain, children curiously crouch down to peer through the gaps in the wooden boards at the world below - slowly crawling pill bugs, earthworms turning moist soil, and curled and stretched flowers and moss.
The wooden boardwalk stretches from Baizuo Valley in the east to Dashi Valley Tea Garden in the west, connecting ecological attractions such as Lizuo Valley, Gejia Valley, and Yunquan Temple. It serves as a "four-season corridor" for spring pear blossoms, summer bamboo groves, autumn colorful forests, and winter warm sunshine. Built 17 years ago, this boardwalk not only provides year-round scenery but has also ignited three development "paths" for the village: a "prosperity path" that brings mountain "golden fruits and silver leaves" to thousands of urban households; an "ecological path" that allows visitors immersive leisure while protecting the original mountain landscape; and an "industrial path" that leverages green mountains and clear waters to create a symbiotic agricultural-cultural-tourism ecosystem.
Shushan Village has constructed its own "ecological economics" through this single wooden boardwalk.
**Principle One: Maximum Access with Minimum Disturbance**
Shushan Village faces the ancient city of Suzhou to the east and Taihu Lake to the west, embraced by three mountains, connected by four valleys, and interwoven with five waterways. For a long time, this was merely an underdeveloped small mountain village west of Suzhou city.
The turning point came with the construction of a 3.6-kilometer wooden boardwalk that embraces Shushan Mountain. Initially built for "ecological restoration," it connected the scattered mountains, waters, forests, fields, and courtyards into a "string of pearls," and then facilitated "industrial transformation," establishing the framework and corridor for agricultural-cultural-tourism integration.
Since its completion in 2008, this boardwalk has not only changed the village's rugged mountain roads and inconvenient transportation but has also become a vivid testament to Shushan Village's transformation of the "Two Mountains" concept into real productivity.
"Maximum access with minimum disturbance" was the ecological principle upheld by the builders of Shushan's wooden boardwalk. The boardwalk, a national-level farmer sports and fitness facility, winds up from the foot of the mountain, passing through tea fields and orchards, skimming over babbling streams, connecting scattered farmhouses with mountain landscapes into a single route, while also serving as a convenient path for fresh fruits to flow down the mountain.
Shushan's pear trees, tea trees, and bayberry trees are known as the "three treasures." After the wooden boardwalk was completed, agricultural management became convenient and mountain access smooth, further enhancing the freshness of agricultural products.
"Compared to rigid concrete roads, the wooden boardwalk not only harmonizes with the mountain scenery but also preserves soil breathing space and habitat for small creatures," says Wu Xuechun, Party Secretary of Shushan Village, who walks here daily, chatting with tourists and villagers.
"Shushan bayberries have just received 'National Geographic Indication Product' certification, adding to the previously obtained 'Geographic Indication Agricultural Product' and 'Geographic Indication Certification Trademark' national certifications, making it a 'triple crown winner'!" Wu Xuechun told reporters that the bayberry selling season is extremely short, and in the past, they would "wither as soon as they left the village" during continuous rainy weather. "After the wooden boardwalk was built, bayberries picked in the morning are directly connected to cold chain logistics and reach Shanghai in the afternoon!"
At the western entrance of the wooden boardwalk, terraced tea gardens display distinct layers and lush greenery. Visitors could hardly imagine that before ecological restoration, Shushan was primarily focused on mineral extraction, leaving the mountain scarred and suffering severe soil erosion. After closing the mines, the village restored vegetation and adjusted its industrial structure, with tea trees becoming the first batch of green industries to "enter the mountain."
Ecological restoration brought recovery of soil and water conservation capabilities, making bayberry trees, pear trees, and tea trees genuine "money trees." Currently, Shushan Yunquan Tea covers a total planting area of 1,000 acres, with annual output value reaching 15-20 million yuan. Wu Xuechun says the villagers' foundation for prosperity truly is these "three trees"!
**Principle Two: The Most Ordinary Scenery Awakens the Richest Emotions**
However, this now universally praised wooden boardwalk faced challenges during its initial construction. Some worried about "occupying forest land and reducing output," others considered it a "show project," and some called it a nondescript "foreign thing."
Villager Old Wang remembers that his bayberry garden needed pruning at the time, and construction vehicles blocked the small path to the garden. "I went to argue with village officials, thinking this path was for tourists - what did it have to do with us farmers?" It wasn't until the following year when bayberries went to market and he witnessed streams of tourists coming up the mountain to buy fruit that he smiled and conceded: "This road was really built right."
Now, not only during the seasons when pears, bayberries, and tea are marketed does the wooden boardwalk bustle with activity, but even on weekdays, tourists come up the mountain for sightseeing, including writers, painters, and photographers from various places whose works attract travelers from all over the world.
"Around 2012, people from Zhejiang came to our house wanting to rent it for 100,000 yuan a year," says villager Wu Chen, who like other post-85 generation residents of Shushan Village, went to work in factories after graduating from university in 2004. "But when I heard people wanted to rent houses in our village, I felt it was time to return."
Wu Chen first went to Moganshan to "learn from experience," then returned to Shushan to open the "Bamboo Mountain Residence" homestay. Wu Chen particularly enjoys taking guests on walks along the wooden boardwalk, fully immersing themselves in the mountains. A professor from Shanghai even wrote an essay specifically about "awakening the richest emotions with the simplest scenery."
More and more villagers are returning home to open homestays and farmhouse restaurants; meanwhile, more and more city dwellers are also coming here to pursue their dreams.
"In 2017, I happened to come to Shushan and decided to stay," says Chen Jin, who chose to resign and rent a local residence at the foot of Dashi Mountain to open a homestay called "Here." "'Here' comes from 'journey,' representing both a geographical stop and a life choice."
Stepping into "Here·Shushan," large floor-to-ceiling windows welcome mountain views that are sometimes shrouded in mist and sometimes lush green into the interior. Every weekend, corporate executives from surrounding cities enjoy reading and reciting poetry beside the wooden boardwalk - "Here" has become a "spiritual sanctuary" for workplace strivers.
Today, "Here·Shushan" branches have spread, and this cross-regional cultural tourism network still originates from "here" on Shushan's wooden boardwalk.
**Principle Three: The Simplest Design Highlights the Most Profound Logic**
As farmhouse restaurants, homestays, and other businesses layout along the wooden boardwalk, Shushan's industrial landscape continues to expand, offering not only tourists' "culinary nostalgia" but also new business formats taking root.
Entering Shushan Village's "Daydream" photography base, newlyweds smile brightly in front of cameras while staff behind the scenes busy themselves adjusting lights and setting up scenes. Manager Li Zhi tells reporters that he rented this place two years ago, attracted by Shushan's beautiful environment and convenient transportation. He renovated a local residence into a Southern French-style indoor studio, with "the beautiful Shushan village scenery as the outdoor backdrop, perfectly matching the renovation style."
Although the 500 yuan per hour price is not cheap, it still attracts many customers - from ordinary families taking portrait photos to professional teams coming specifically to shoot clothing and home textile promotional materials.
Inside the Tongxin Jinluo Cultural Center, intangible cultural heritage crafts such as Song brocade and silk are being demonstrated live by inheritors. The Song brocade fabrics sold in the center are expensive, with customers throughout Shanghai, Shenzhen, and other places, mostly long-term cooperative fixed clients. Manager Wang Shuhan says choosing to locate the exhibition hall in Shushan is not only to showcase the crafts themselves but also to combine products with the natural atmosphere of Suzhou's countryside, endowing them with more "emotional value."
The influx of these new business formats not only allows tourists to "stay longer" in Shushan but also extends the village's industrial chain, naturally making villagers wealthier.
"Now the village's annual income exceeds 10 million yuan, and villagers rely on agricultural product sales, residential rentals, and other sources for household incomes exceeding 300,000 yuan," Wu Xuechun says.
"High-end hotel brands like Hilton and Naked have also settled in the village, elevating Shushan's consumption level another notch."
This seemingly simple wooden boardwalk has driven continuous improvement in the village's environmental enhancement, layout coordination, management optimization, and other productivity systems, significantly boosting Shushan Village's systematic productivity and drawing new business formats into the grand stage of rural revitalization.
In Tongan Town, "wooden boardwalk ecological economics" has also shifted grassroots governance logic from "engineering thinking" to "systematic thinking": ecological restoration, landscape control, industrial introduction, public culture, sports health, and social governance are designed and implemented simultaneously in the same direction.
The wooden boardwalk is no longer an isolated "design" but a "system" connecting ecology, people, and industries. Current grassroots managers need to do more than attract projects and promote investment; they must explore a realization path for transforming ecological advantages into developmental advantages.
"Green mountains and clear waters have moved beyond 'ticket economy' toward 'scenario economy.' Without walls or entrance fees, public spaces become 'never-ending exhibition venues' where consumption occurs naturally within scenarios; one-time 'sightseeing' consumption is upgraded to compound consumption of 'living in, slow experience, and diversification,'" says Xu Li, Party Secretary of Tongan Town. "In organizational approach, we've moved from 'departmental promotion' to 'multi-element co-governance,' with the Party committee and government setting direction, platform companies implementing, industry associations strengthening self-discipline, village collectives providing stability, and social capital and returning youth co-creating businesses, with clear responsibilities and efficient coordination."
When a place's ecological protection empowers industrial development, industrial development will inevitably give back to ecological protection - the dialectics of Shushan Village's "ecological economics" makes the realization of common prosperity inevitable. The profound logic can be glimpsed through this wooden boardwalk.
The great way is simple.
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