He Ran, who was born and raised in Hejiayan Village in Youyang, a Tujia and Miao autonomous county in Chongqing Municipality, was once reluctant to stay in her hometown.

"It was a bit dirty and disorganized, and there weren't many good jobs for me," the 24-year-old told Beijing Review. But now, as the manager of a local cafe and guesthouse in Hejiayan, she has decided to settle down there and work for the betterment of the village.

The change in her decision came with the transformation of Hejiayan. In recent years, local authorities and villagers have worked to turn the old and backward village into a place that combines rural scenery with ethnic features and modern infrastructure, benefiting locals and attracting visitors nationwide.

Countryside CEO

After graduating from a junior college majoring in tourism services and hotel management, He worked at a hotel in downtown Chongqing, about 380 km from Hejiayan. She went to downtown Chongqing as she thought she could enjoy a modern urban lifestyle and more job opportunities there.

But something was missing—a chance to give full play to her entrepreneurial spirit. Then she came across a senior staff member from tech giant Tencent which also runs several projects to help upgrade villages. Through their conversation, He learned about a project called Countryside CEO. Initiated by China Agricultural University and Tencent in 2021, this undertaking aims to cultivate professional management personnel so they can run profitable businesses and make a difference in the country's rural areas, which generally suffer brain drain as young workers and talents venture beyond rural limits to seek employment in cities.

The project has a partnership with the government of Youyang, which administers Hejiayan, one of the project's launch sites. When asked whether she would like to return home and contribute her ideas and efforts to her hometown through the project, He responded with a resounding "Yes!"

In 2021, she became a Countryside CEO candidate and started to attend training sessions where professionals such as successful Internet business entrepreneurs and experts from China Agricultural University share their knowledge and insights.

Now, about two years have passed, and she has done some meaningful things for her hometown. In addition to starting up the cafe she now works at, she has also helped villagers launch several new businesses such as bed and breakfasts, and a self-service convenience store.

"We start from scratch and rack our brains for ideas on how to better run them. We also discuss how to promote the village online to attract more tourists," He said. "It's the ingenuity of both the Countryside CEOs and other residents that have made the village what it is now."

Poverty to paradise 

Hejiayan is nestled in the southeastern part of mountainous Chongqing Municipality. "Hejia" refers to the local families, who are mostly surnamed He, and "Yan" means stones. The village, with a population of over 2,100, sits right next to tons of mountain rocks.

In the past, the main source of income for local farmers was rice cultivation. Despite the good quality of the grain grown on the fertile terraced fields, inconvenient transportation hindered its sales to other places. The village was under the country's poverty line. The current poverty threshold in rural China is 2,300 yuan ($320) per person per year at 2010 constant prices. Like in many poor Chinese villages, young laborers had to travel to better-off places to find work, leaving behind children and seniors—as well as vast plots of uncultivated land.

About one decade ago, the local government started encouraging farmers to form cooperatives and grow crops on larger scales. The authorities also helped them build their own brands and expand marketing channels. By putting in place this type of support mechanism, sales were boosted and farmers' incomes went up.

In recent years, the village has also embraced digital technology to sell their rice. By registering on a particular applet of Tencent's Weixin super app, people nationwide can subscribe to a plot of land and become a farmer in the cloud. Local farmers will then help them tend the rice and deliver it to their houses once it's harvested. Customers can also monitor crop growth via live-stream and obtain detailed information online, such as soil moisture data.

But the village didn't stop there. It took the improvement of its living conditions and tourism development to the next level by tapping into its natural landscape, traditional ethnic architecture and folk customs. In the past, households raised livestock in their own yards. The smell and sight of excrement everywhere were highly unfavorable. Later, the government built a large pigpen and cowshed within walking distance and encouraged all farmers to raise their livestock there, leaving their homes fresh and clean. In addition, a granary was transformed into a museum showcasing the village's history and development.

Endowed with several intangible cultural heritages, Hejiayan has managed to integrate their conservation and promotion with tourism. For example, the village has hosted events and invited tourists living at local inns to join a hand-waving dance, a traditional collective performance of the Tujia people where all the dancers form a circle on the ground and dance with their arms swinging freely and their legs following various floor patterns to the beats of drums and gongs.

Souvenir stores offer travelers hand-embroideryed items courtesy of the Miao ethnic group, renowned for the handicraft. Some retired villagers, especially senior women, also earn a little extra money by creating these products—after receiving free training from local workshops.

And then there are the many rice patch subscribers who also visit the village to check on their budding harvest.

In 2012, the per-capita net income of farmers in Hejiayan was under 3,000 yuan ($419). In 2022, the village received 56,000 visitors, generating revenues of over 8 million yuan ($1.12 million).

For He Gang, a homestay owner, life has also become easier. He started taking on odd jobs in nearby cities after graduating from middle school around the age of 16. Later, when he was already the father of two children, he still struggled to make ends meet. In 2017, already in his 40s, he returned to Hejiayan and joined its tourism service sector. Today, his homestay business earns home some 160,000 yuan ($22,340) every year despite its only receiving guests during the peak season, from March to October every year. By comparison, the per-capita disposable income of rural residents in 2022 was 20,133 yuan ($2,811), according to the State Council Information Office. "I'm very happy with my life and I have nothing to complain about," He Gang said.

He Gang is also a Countryside CEO, who often shares his experiences with other homestay owners in the village who look to upgrade their services. "When a few of us get better-off, it's not prosperity; only when the whole village gets better-off, can it be considered real common prosperity," he said.

Agricultural upgrading and tourism, the new countryside calling cards, are pathways to a better life for many Chinese villages. When talking about the sustainable development of Hejiayan, Lu Dong, secretary of the village branch of the Communist Party of China, told Beijing Review that tapping into local strengths is very important. "We have been and will continue working on exploring new features to make Hejiayan stand out," he said.

(Reporting from Hejiayan Village, Chongqing Municipality) 

(Print Edition Title: Countryside Calling Cards) 

Copyedited by Elsbeth van Paridon 

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