Shanghai Daily news

Hangtou's development has increased with the recent construction of several high-level villa projects. It takes only about a 30-minute drive to reach Pudong International Airport or the Lujiazui financial district from the town. People's Square can be reached in 40 minutes.

With its convenient transport time, the former farmland and polluted small streams have gradually been replaced by the attractive construction of the villas which places a premium on the beauty of the surrounding environment.

When viewed from a seven-story government building, the highest point in the town, visitors can see that the large-scale, impressive villa communities extend in all directions. Some of the villas sell for more than 20 million yuan (US$2.5 million) each.

Some local farmers in Meiyuan Village have also built their own villas as part of the overall plan under the supervision of the district government. The earliest villa owners have seen their house value increase to 1.2 million yuan from a mere 180,000 yuan just four years ago.

Community Cultural and Entertainment Center

The advent of the villa communities has resulted in rapid-growing infrastructure construction around Hangtou. In late 2005, a community center, which cost the local government more than 80 million yuan, was completed.

The center includes a drama theater, reading rooms, an Internet cafe, sporting grounds and music classrooms, among others; all are free for the local people. A Youth Center also provides free lessons in painting, calligraphy, music, sports and computers. During the summer days, the air-conditioned facilities attracted many senior citizens to the free lessons. The swimming pool is another popular attraction.

At Fu Lei Plaza, seniors can be seen exercising at the sports facilities while kids take turns on the slides, laughing aloud. Fu Lei, one of the country's earliest and most legendary English-language translators at the start of the 20th century, was a Hangtou resident.

Meiyuan Village

For thousands of years, large-scale weddings and funeral ceremonies were traditionally held in Chinese villages. Over time, farmers became city dwellers and the change of lifestyle generated a new and healthier life concept. With their smaller city dwellings, they no longer had the facilities to hold large wedding and funeral ceremonies at home. To capitalize on the desire of many people to hold such functions, in recent years, Meiyuan Village Committee members came up with the idea of setting up a special hall for weddings and funerals.

The locals have held a long tradition of inviting people to have meals and drinks together to celebrate the wedding or to commemorate a death. Tan Linhua, one of the village committee members, said, "The ceremony almost united all of the village people. This will last a week and requires that the host provide three meals a day for all in attendance."

This huge amount of work in staging such a ceremony exhausted the host family and sometimes even put them into debt. Nowadays with many villagers having moved to apartments and being without a backyards, some residents now set their dining tables along the roads or even in the school playgrounds.

The dining hall is now open to all. Unlike hotels and restaurants, it provides a big kitchen for the host family to cook for themselves, reducing the cost of the ceremony.

This year, banquets were held every weekend and reservations are now booked through March.

Senior Residents

Lu Jinxian waits in the theater for the beginning of a drama interpreting legal society promotion. She received the free ticket from her community and has looked forward to seeing the performance for days.

"Shows are staged in this theater very often. Most of them are free to the local people," Lu said. The 67-year-old is the mother of two sons. One works in a local disabled persons' federation and the other is a decorator. Both have built their own private houses. As a family member of a former farmer, Lu receives 407 yuan each month from the government for payment of the use of her family's land. "For the past 10 years, the money has been sent to my account each month and is never late," she said.

Lu said originally her family worried that the local government would not pay them properly. Now this healthy, elderly woman is happy to see that she needs not to ask her sons for money."Life is good. The money is enough for my daily expenses and you never can know how much I suffered in the olden days," Lu said with a smile.