Jinjiang City, building upon its century-old foundation as the "Hometown of Basketball," has innovatively explored a "Village BA" + rural cultural and ethical development model. Through event leadership, cultural immersion, and institutional safeguards, it has achieved a synergistic resonance between sporting vitality and new standards of civility, forging a new path for rural cultural construction characterized by "using competitions to promote governance, using competitions to revitalize culture, and using competitions to educate people."
Leveraging events to create a new vehicle for rural cultural and ethical standards, the initiative effectively utilizes the "Village BA"'s deep mass appeal and strong local characteristics to build an important platform for fostering hometown solidarity and disseminating new civilized practices. It strengthens the foundation and cultivates a new trend of nationwide fitness. Adhering to the principle of "government guidance, social participation, and people as the main body," it promotes the deep integration of basketball into the rural fabric. The city has built over a thousand lit basketball courts and hosts more than a thousand games annually, creating a vibrant scene where "every village has a team, and there are games to watch every day."
From successfully hosting the national "Village BA" Southeast China divisional games to organizing the National Rural Basketball Cultural Exhibition, the "Village BA" has become the most dynamic cultural and sports symbol in Jinjiang's countryside. The Jinjiang spirit of "daring to strive and win" is fully displayed both on and off the court. The Jinjiang basketball team won the 2025 national "Village BA" championship.
The initiative empowers transformation, promoting the effective substitution of "old customs with new practices." Focusing on challenges in rural governance, it uses the appeal and influence of the "Village BA" to guide the public in abandoning outdated conventions. Integrating the reform of social traditions into the entire event process, it supports and guides villages and communities to transform traditional folk activities, such as the "Pudu Day," into "Basketball Game Days" or "Cultural and Sports Activity Days." The once prevalent phenomenon of gambling and excessive drinking has been fundamentally changed, with "playing and watching ball games" becoming a new leisure choice for villagers.
It stimulates a sense of identity, making co-construction and sharing a conscious act. During event preparation and operation, villagers spontaneously form volunteer teams to handle tasks like maintaining order, traffic guidance, and logistical support; local elites, entrepreneurs, and ordinary villagers actively donate funds and materials, cumulatively raising nearly 100 million yuan in private funds for venue upgrades and event operations. Players actively participate in promoting the reform of social traditions, civilized competition, and civilized spectating, becoming "spokespersons" for civilized rural practices and encouraging more villagers to emulate positive examples and uphold civility.
This sense of ownership, encapsulated in "organizing our own events," has greatly stimulated grassroots democratic vitality, promoted neighborly harmony and community cohesion, and built a foundation for civilized rural governance based on joint construction, joint governance, and shared benefits.
Through cultural immersion, the initiative cultivates new connotations for rural cultural and ethical standards, focusing on deeply integrating the "Village BA" events with local culture to give civilized rural practices more enduring vitality. It preserves and innovates, activating cultural genes. During the "Village BA" events, intangible cultural heritage performances and folk custom displays such as dragon dances, Nanyin music, Gaojia opera, and puppet shows are incorporated. Each event not only enriches cultural life but also becomes a mobile classroom for disseminating civilized concepts.
It delves into the local cultural resources of villages and communities, guiding the creation of unique cultural brands for each village and the "Maritime Charm, Overseas Chinese Style, Civilized Jinjiang" high-quality cultural route for new-era civilization practices, attracting over 500,000 visitors annually. This allows villagers and tourists to experience the unique charm of local culture beyond the games.
Exemplary models are used to establish value orientations. Leveraging the "Village BA" platform, it vigorously promotes advanced examples of local elites donating to public welfare and simplifying wedding and funeral practices. These real-life examples from the community subtly shift old mindsets of "comparing extravagance and showing off wealth" towards new trends of "comparing contributions and offering kindness." Currently, the city has established 262 named funds and 20 special funds. Donations saved from weddings, funerals, and folk activities amount to 4.312 billion yuan, benefiting over 210,000 people in need, achieving a win-win situation of "breaking bad habits and promoting public welfare."
It integrates physical spaces to expand the realm of civility. Resources such as civilization practice stations, cultural squares, village-level basketball venues, and爱心驿站 (love stations) are consolidated to create a "1 + N" grassroots network of venues. Basketball courts are transformed into comprehensive platforms for grassroots advocacy and cultural activities, allowing the public to participate in civilized activities and enjoy convenient services nearby after attending games. It promotes paired collaboration between Jinjiang's New Era Practice Center and entities like Youxi County in Sanming and Huaqiao University, continuously enhancing the level of civilization practice work through university-local cooperation, regional coordination, and cultural and sports exchanges.
Through institutional innovation, it constructs a new framework for rural cultural and ethical standards, using the collective consciousness, spirit of cooperation, and civilized agreements formed during the events as a starting point to establish sound long-term mechanisms and promote the normalization and systematization of rural cultural development. It provides normative guidance and sets civilized benchmarks. Driven by the "Multi-dimensional Empowerment for Three-Self-Governance Efficiency" project, all 399 villages and communities in the city have revised and improved locally characteristic, operable village regulations and residents' conventions. "Neighborhood Conventions" have been promoted in 322 residential communities, clearly defining the scale, standards, and duration of wedding and funeral ceremonies, making the reform of social traditions rule-based.
Supervision is strengthened to promote常态化长效化 (normalization and long-term effectiveness). The enthusiasm of villagers in spontaneously maintaining order and supervising sportsmanship and discipline reflects the great potential for public participation in governance. Building on this, Jinjiang has upgraded this "on-court supervision" mechanism into an "off-court monitoring" system. A "daily dynamic monitoring report + regular dynamic notification" system has been established, forming a three-tiered monitoring network linking the city, towns, and villages. Departments such as the Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision, Civil Affairs, and the Civilization Office conduct irregular joint inspections and special supervision, incorporating the effectiveness of social tradition reforms into grassroots performance assessments and the creation of civilized villages and towns as key components.
Simultaneously, the comprehensive improvement of the living environment is closely integrated with the construction of rural cultural and ethical standards. Ten special campaigns for enhancing urban and rural living environments are carried out, using a beautiful environment to nurture civilized habits.
Services are innovated to implement convenience and benefit the people. The spirit of "one for all" volunteerism emerging from the "Village BA" events is channeled into difficult areas of social tradition reform. Addressing practical challenges faced by the public in organizing weddings and funerals, it innovatively launched "New Practice Services for Weddings and Funerals," forming professional service teams composed of veteran Party members, local elites, and volunteers to provide one-stop services including process guidance, resource coordination, and on-site management. This makes "new-style weddings and simplified funerals" a practical choice that saves worry, effort, and money. Cizao Town's volunteer service project "Promoting the Reform of Social Traditions and Advocating Civilized Rural Practices" was recognized as a national "Top 100" best volunteer service project. Practices like the "Civility Point Card" and "New Practice Service Packages for Weddings and Funerals" have been promoted citywide.
Practice has proven that the "Village BA" is not just a sporting event but also an important engine for promoting rural cultural and ethical progress. In the next step, Jinjiang will continue to deepen the integrated "Sports + Civility" model, allowing the spark of the "Village BA" to ignite the light of civilization in more villages and inject lasting civilized momentum into rural revitalization.
