Haishou Island, located in Jiujiang Town of Nanhai District in Foshan City, is a unique place. Nestled in the middle of the Xijiang River channel, it is not connected to the mainland and accessible only by ferry. Unlike most uninhabited river-islands, Haishou Island is home to about 1,800 villagers. It houses Foshan’s smallest primary school, where a group of students wear life jackets to commute by boat every day. Though far from urban hustle and bustle, it is known as Guangdong’s earliest “Island of Poetry”.
Poetry abounds on Haishou Island.
Stepping onto the island by ferry, one can see the calm tide lapping the ancient ferry terminal and sails slanting against the distant sky, catching a glimpse of the former fishing village scenery of Jiujiang. Driven by the “Project for Advancement of Counties, Townships and Villages”, Haishou Island has turned its idyllic rural life into the poetic distant dream cherished by tourists, and meanwhile, found the key to prosperity in the new era.
Living off the Water
“Walking along this greenway, the scenery is absolutely stunning!” In the fish pond area of Haishou Island, a villager affectionately known as Uncle Ou is carrying a bucket to feed his fish, a job he has been doing for decades.
The mighty Xijiang River, originating from the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, surges forward with sediment. Together with the Beijiang and Dongjiang Rivers, it has alluviated to form the Pearl River Delta, and Haishou Island lies near the starting point of this delta.
“Haishou Village was founded more than 150 years ago, when our ancestors moved here from Taiping Sha and settled down by fishing and fish/shrimp farming,” said Li Jinyuan, a village cadre of Haishou Village. The island’s residents have lived off the water for generations.
A bird’s-eye view shows that more than half of the island is covered by fish ponds, with residential houses built alongside them. Water from the Xijiang River is channelled into the ponds, where plump fresh fish grow in batches across the grid-like water enclosures.
Nevertheless, this centuries-old livelihood once ran into a bottleneck.
“Villagers had access to pristine water resources, yet their lives never really tasted sweetness,” Li Jinyuan remarked. For a long time, fish farming on the island relied on traditional experience and the whims of nature, lacking market-oriented modern business thinking. Meanwhile, the untreated tail water from fish farming exerted pressure on the ecological environment.
With the advancement of the Project for Advancement of Counties, Townships and Villages, Haishou Village has accelerated the transformation of its fishery industry. The village Party and village committee led fish farmers to visit surrounding aquaculture bases, re-examining this ancestral trade from a modern agricultural perspective.
In fact, Foshan City has promoted the renovation and upgrading of aquaculture ponds across the whole region. Compared with other areas, Haishou Island features complex terrain and hydrology as well as a large area of fish ponds, making it the largest concentrated aquaculture zone in Jiujiang.
The village made a firm resolve to upgrade fishery quality and treat tail water by changing mindsets, management methods, development models and breeding varieties. It also built a new rural landscape through the Five Beautification Initiatives (beautiful villages, beautiful industry, beautiful ecology, beautiful culture and beautiful life), expediting the effectiveness of fish pond renovation.
Up to now, Haishou Village has completed the renovation of 2,050 mu of aquaculture ponds. The aquaculture area has been scientifically divided into three zones with supporting purification facilities. The Central Creek and Haizai Creek in the village serve as water sources for nearby fish ponds, with sewage interception implemented along their banks. A centralized tail water treatment facility has been built at the downstream outlet area, enabling up-to-standard discharge or recycling of water.
Today, the beautiful fish farms on Haishou Island have become a distinctive scenic spot for villagers and tourists to relax and sightseeing, boasting a unique landscape of “large rivers embracing small ponds”.
Ecological transformation has not only given the fish ponds a new lease of life, but also increased farmers’ income. “We used to live at the mercy of the weather, but now we rely on technological support,” Uncle Ou said.
Ecological and scientific aquaculture has boosted villagers’ earnings. A decade ago, the per capita dividend for villagers was only 200 to 300 RMB; now it has reached nearly 2,000 RMB, bringing them increasingly prosperous lives.
A Sound Environment is Also Productive Force
The renovation of fish ponds has strengthened the villagers’ belief: a pleasant environment can also generate economic benefits.
Along the Xijiang River bank, the shantytowns built randomly have been cleared away. “Thanks to the rural living environment improvement campaign, garbage has been removed, idle open spaces turned into parks, and villagers’ quality of life has improved remarkably,” Li Jinyuan stated.
More and more young people are choosing to return to the “islander life”.
A young returnee named A So spotted the opportunity of the river-island’s shift to cultural tourism and leisure. In 2021, she transformed the land her parents once used for shipbuilding and chicken farming into a campsite café with a lawn. Timing perfectly with the local tourism boom, the café has enjoyed booming business.
In the past two years, as the effects of the Project for Advancement of Counties, Townships and Villages have emerged, she resigned from her job in Guangzhou and devoted herself to hometown development. She now runs five branches in the town, linking core attractions such as the Xuanjinglong Museum and the Egret Paradise. She has launched signature drinks with distinctive Jiujiang flavours, such as Double Steamed Latte and woody aroma beverages, and provides tourists with comprehensive travel guides.
This year, her newly opened Back to the Island Café by the riverside ferry terminal has become the first stop for many tourists arriving on the island.
“We don’t just sell coffee; we want to tell the beautiful stories of Haishou Island well,” A So said. The drinks in the café draw inspiration from the island’s local produce – lemon coffee and banana special drinks all use local crops. Cultural and creative products such as fridge magnets and keychains shaped like fish, shrimp and clams have also attracted numerous tourists.
“These creative ideas all stem from the daily life of islanders. Turning them into IP products strikes a deeper chord with visitors,” A So explained. During the Two-Rivers Ring Bicycle Race, she sponsored 2,000 cultural and creative gifts for the event, allowing more people to take home “the taste of Haishou Island”.
While some have set their sights on coffee business, others have ventured into homestays. The homestay run by villager Ou Guoliang is often fully booked even on Mondays. “I am a native Haishou islander. Seeing my hometown thriving, I wanted to come back and revitalize my ancestral house,” he said.
His homestay is a four-storey building equipped with a karaoke room, barbecue grills and a tea area with a stove around which guests gather to brew tea. Old shrimp cages adorn the surrounding walls, and an ancient banyan tree that has stood since his childhood remains in the courtyard.
The “islander life” has become a major highlight of Haishou’s tourism. Since its opening, the homestay has attracted many tourists from Guangzhou and Foshan, especially retirees, some of whom make special trips to stay here two or three times a year. “Visitors expect a comfortable stay and fresh local food,” Ou Guoliang said. He has proactively connected with nearby villagers to help them sell agricultural products such as vegetables, sweet potatoes and bananas. A self-built parking lot is also close to the homestay, with electric flat carts parked at the gate to shuttle guests to village restaurants at any time.
A growing number of villagers have started their own businesses right at their doorsteps. To this end, Haishou Village plans to integrate resources, arrange unified cleaning and laundry services, and push for the professionalization of tourism services.
Sailing Forward on the “Two-Rivers Ring” Yacht
Villagers’ independent business projects are like scattered pearls. Only by connecting them through modern cultural tourism operations can we truly string the pearls into a chain.
“Haishou Island is never short of reputation,” Li Jinyuan said as he led reporters to the Party-Masses Service Center, where various plaques hang on the wall – it is recognized as Foshan’s Most Beautiful Hiking Trail, one of Nanhai’s Top 10 Most Beautiful Hiking Routes, a Beautiful and Civilized Village, and a Provincial Demonstration Site for Leisure Agriculture and Rural Tourism. Oddly enough, many cultural tourism projects have conducted inspections here over the years, but most failed to materialize.
The village analyzed that the problem lay in inherent constraints: of the island’s over 3,000 mu of land, the 10-meter area inside the dykes is a blue-line protected zone, and most of the outer area is water conservancy land and secondary water source protection zone, resulting in numerous construction approval procedures. The only access to the island is by ferry, whose revenue has been declining in recent years, leaving the village collective economy in urgent need of new growth drivers.
With the proposal of Foshan’s planning for the Two-Rivers Ring Pilot Zone, Haishou Island has gained a new positioning. As the core area of the Cultural and Tourism Premium Zone of Four Mountains and Two Rivers, it has been injected with modern cultural tourism operation concepts and resources.
In the second half of this year, taking the opportunity of the Foshan Two-Rivers Ring Bicycle Race held on Haishou Island, the village used special support funds to widen the 4-meter dirt road along the dyke to 6-8 meters, paved asphalt on the potholed sections, added eye-catching signs, and achieved full greening along the road.
Jiujiang Town has also put forward a new idea: with ferries and terminals in place, can yacht tourism be developed on Haishou Island?
“In the past, the terminal only accommodated ferries, and there was a lack of policy support for taking tourists on island tours by boat,” Li Jinyuan said. It was not until the promotion of market-oriented operation this year that the waters regained vitality.
In 2025, Guangdong Province and Foshan City have accelerated the layout of the yacht industry and issued supporting plans one after another. Haishou Village, the only natural village in Foshan with a foundation for the yacht industry, has become a fortunate beneficiary.
On May 30, the Rulin Bay Yacht Club was inaugurated on Haishou Island; on November 22, Nanhai’s “Two-Rivers Ring” Yacht set sail from here, connecting a three-dimensional land-sea-air roaming route.
“This route links Xiqiao and Jiujiang towns. Tourists can take a helicopter to overlook the 25-kilometer aerial corridor of Sanyuanwei and the beautiful scenery of the Xijiang River, then take a yacht to circle the island, and also enjoy sea fishing and camping activities,” said Wan Xiaoxi, a relevant person in charge of the yacht club.
During the interview, reporters met representatives from a ship design company who came to inspect the island for potential cooperation.
“The future of Haishou depends on whether we can build a sustainable development model together with the whole village,” Wan Xiaoxi said. The yacht club prioritizes hiring local residents and has transformed farmland into research and study classrooms. It is promoting the establishment of the Haishou Island Cultural Tourism Development Association, uniting merchants such as Ou Guoliang to develop the island jointly with the village collective, project developers, restaurants and farmers, making every villager a builder of the island’s brand.
“Next year, we plan to launch an All-in-One Ticket, with ferry fares jointly borne by the village collective and merchants. This will surely attract more tourists from the Greater Bay Area,” Li Jinyuan said. The village is cooperating with municipal departments to develop shipping routes, hoping that yachts from the Greater Bay Area can berth here in the future.
The setting sun gradually sank behind the silhouette of Xiqiao Mountain. The ferry carried us away from the island, with golden ripples rippling from the stern. Cyclists on the greenway slowed down, gently brushing the foxtail grass by the roadside with their fingers. The school bell rang at Haishou Primary School, and children’s laughter drifted away with the river breeze, startling a few egrets perched on the ferry terminal.
