Radio Drama · 2026-06-30
The “hearth council” in a Chinese village-development radio drama
Produced by the Baoshan City Media Centre, the Chinese radio drama “If the Stars Could Speak” was broadcast on Minhang District radio on 27 June. Through the story of two Lisu brothers, it portrays the development of a Yunnan village and the tradition of the “hearth council.”
The play follows the lives of two Lisu brothers from the village of Houqiao, near Tengchong. The elder brother stays in the village. Through the “hearth council” — a community gathering held around the fire — he becomes a village Party secretary who brings people together. The younger brother leaves the mountains and documents his homeland as a journalist. The backdrop is the village's development since 2000.
In 2025 the “hearth council” was named one of China's “ten best examples of rural community culture.” This is a state recognition: China's Central Office for Spiritual Civilisation chose the ten models from 169 nominees, and the results were announced in Yan'an in October 2025. The ten models come from ten different provinces; Yunnan's Houqiao made the list for its “hearth council.” As yet there is no news of a radio drama based on any of the others.
The radio drama was produced by the Baoshan City Media Centre — the state media institution of Baoshan, a city in Yunnan province, which produces radio and television content for the region. It was broadcast on Minhang District radio, a district-level public station in Shanghai, at FM 102.7 on 27 June, with a repeat on the 28th. The production was made in the spirit of thirty years of cooperation between Shanghai and Yunnan.
Sources: Tencent News · Xinhua Yunnan
This article was machine-composed under human supervision.