Hu pays New Year visits to people at revolutionary base

As the Spring Festival, Chinese lunar New Year, is drawing near, Chinese President Hu Jintao visited the people in the revolutionary base of Yan'an, in northwest China's Shanxi Province, to extend Spring Festival greetings to them.

On Saturday morning, Hu visited the people in Hougoumen Village of Ansai County. He watched the performance of the villagers and joined them in dancing "yangge", a popular rural folk dance especially in northern China.

Later, Hu called on 51-year-old farmer, Kang Haifa, at his home. He chatted with Kang's family in their cave dwelling and joined them in making "niangao", a kind of glutinous rice cake widely eaten by Chinese during the lunar New Year period.

Enjoying fried "niangao" with the family-made rice wine, Hu, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, told the Kang's that he was glad to see the villagers are living a good life.

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, said the president, who began the visit to Yan'an on Friday.

Yan'an served as the CPC headquarters during the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the War of Liberation in the late 1930s and 1940s.

Accompanied by central and provincial officials, Hu went to the Yan'an Bayi Old Folks' Home to extend New Year's greetings to veterans of the Red Army and the Eight Route Army Friday morning.

Shaking hands with the president, 90-year-old Liu Tianyou, who came to Yan'an in 1937 with the Red Army, the final destination of the Long March, told Hu that she was taken good care of at the Old Folks' Home. Hu was pleased to see telephone, TV and heating facilities in Liu's room.

Talking with the veterans, Hu said, "In those years, you made great contribution to the victory of the revolution, overcoming hardships and fighting bravely under the leadership of Chairman Mao and the Party. The Party and the people will never forget your merits and achievements in the revolutionary history."

"Despite the different times, we will continue to carry forward the fine tradition of the Red Army and Eighth Route Army and make the utmost efforts in building our country into a better one," said Hu.