President Hu Jintao joins villagers in folk dance to celebrate the Chinese New Year in Hougoumen Village of Ansai of Yan'an, in northwestern Shaanxi Province on Jan. 28, 2006.

BEIJING, Jan. 28 (Xinhuanet) -- Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao both came to farmers' families to celebrate the lunar New Year. Experts said their New Year trips to rural areas showed the top leadership's resolution to build a new socialist countryside aimed at common prosperity.

Joining villagers in dancing popular rural folk dance "Yangge" and making glutinous rice cake or "niangao," President Hu spent the New Year's Eve in farmer Kang Haifa's home, in Hougoumen Village of Ansai County in the revolutionary base of Yan'an, in northwest China's Shaanxi Province.

Enjoying fried "niangao" with family-made rice wine, he told Kang's family that the goal of building a new socialist countryside in China is to ensure the farmers become rich more quickly, so that festival food such as "niangao" will become their daily diet and their standards of living will become better year by year.

Premier Wen on Friday and Saturday visited the people in east China's Shandong Province. In farmer Guo Xuchen's home, in Guozhuang Village of Heze City, the premier gave money to Guo, whose wife has been sick for years and who have financial difficulties in living.

On Friday afternoon, he went to a village clinic and talked with doctor Dong Longxiang. "We should boost the new rural cooperative medical system so that farmers can afford medical care," he said.

Premier Wen Jiaobao talks with people in Guozhuang Village of Heze City, Shandong Provice on Jan. 28, or the Chinese New Year's eve.

John McDonald, an expert on China issues living in New Zealand,said in a Xinhua interview that the fact of Chinese leaders visiting farmers at the country's most celebrated holiday for three straight years demonstrated their great concern to farmers and the countryside.