Ximen Village, Changyi Town, located in the Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province, is adjacent to Poyang Lake. More than 450,000 migrant birds come here every year for winter. In earlier years, due to lack of awareness of bird protection at local level, illegal hunting and trafficking happened a lot. In 2008, the CCTV report exposed illegal hunting of migrant birds and the destruction of wetlands in Changyi Town, bringing a lot of attention from the society.

Changyi Town is also a famous opera town from ancient times. Ximen Village had its own theatre troupe who had several performances during festival occasions every year. The troupe was quite popular and influential among the villagers. Seeing the reports, the actors in the theatre group felt very sad and decided to make use of their skills and the platform of their theatre to enhance the awareness of bird protection among the people in the lake area. The performers of the troupe are all opera amateurs who joined voluntarily. During their spare time, they went to Yongxiu, Xingzi, Duchang and other places around Poyang Lake to promote birds and wetlands protection. "Many of the actors were members of the bird-hunting team before, and now they are volunteer birdkeepers. People love to see it in the form of opera," said Tao Xuerong, a Chinese opera actor.

The education through the theatre trop of villagers in the form of opera has received the attention and support of the National Nature Reserve Management Bureau of Poyang Lake, Jiangxi Province. In 2012, the Management Bureau and the Municipal officially established the Ximen Theatre Troupe for Migratory Birds Protection, which became the first tea picking theatre troupe devoted to the protection of migratory birds in Jiangxi Province and in China. To support the opera troupe, the leaders of the Poyang Lake Reserve have created new programmes and helped the troupe train more than 20 actors. The troupe were well received by the villagers.

With the further promotion and support of FAO-GEF project, the Poyang Lake Reserve Management Bureau and the Theatre Troupe of jointly organized a series of performance in the nearby countryside in Wucheng, Yongxiu County, Majiayan Huimin Village, Duchang County, Shuanggang Town, Poyang County, Yaoshan Village and Yugan County, respectively. It became a very popular form of expression to enhance people's awareness of bird protection and created a good atmosphere in the whole society.

By the end of 2018, the Ximen Theatre Troupe in Nanchang had more than 100 performances in villages and towns along Poyang Lake, in more than 10 townships and 40 administrative villages. Nearly 10,000 people watched the performances.