A boat captain sings a traditional work song for rowers of the 16 Yuan Dynasty sculling boats in the Shichahai area on Wednesday. ZOU HONG / CHINA DAILY

As sixteen archaized sculling boats lined up on the lakes of Shichahai, boatmen sang the traditional work tune loudly on deck, while women dressed in red cheongsam played folk music on a nearby island surrounded by dozens of drummers and lion dancers.

That was the scene on Wednesday for the maiden voyage of a service that recreates the days of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), when this section of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal was a major channel for shipping grain supplies.

The event was organized to coincided with Grain Rain Day, an ancient festival that marks the start of the lunar calendar's sixth solar term (April 20 this year), the perfect time for planting crops like beans and melons. It was once celebrated with a grand ceremony at the north end of the canal.

All 16 boats were styled on those that appear in the Qingming Festival by the Riverside, a classic Yuan era painting, said An Zhaohui, tourism director for Xicheng district.

Wang Lei, 19, told METRO that he and his fellow boatmen trained for a month to learn how to control the vessels, sing the traditional songs and introduce the sights along the way. Each boat holds a maximum of 16 people and can be rented for 500 yuan per hour, including for weddings and birthday parties.

The Grain Rain Day ceremony will be an annual fixture from this year, one of several steps by the Xicheng government to highlight the history and culture of the Shichahai lakes: Qianhai, Houhai and Xihai.

Restoration of eight surrounding hutong and 240 bungalows will be finished by the end of this year, including work on Yinding Bridge.

A Shichahai community official who did not want to be identified said professional institutions have been involved in the revamp work, so the buildings will be kept in the style of the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Water facilities in bungalows have also been fixed for free to prevent the risk of flooding in the summer.