Great changes

Meanwhile, a retired European police officer is living a happy life while helping farmers to escape from poverty in a poor village in Hechi, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

Nico Rene Hansen, 58, who is from Luxembourg, said great changes have taken place after more than four months of hard work in the mountainous village of Zhadong.

The passion fruit vines he planted with villagers are now growing well and all the fruit has been sold online, which will help the villagers to increase their incomes, Hansen said.

Located in the city's Yizhou district, Zhadong administers 14 smaller villages and comprises 600 villagers from 180 households. Of these, 101 families with 304 farmers are poverty-stricken.

"Six of the smaller villages still had no highways when I arrived in the village four months ago," Hansen said.

"Now highway construction for five of the six smaller villages has been completed, linking them to other parts of Guangxi and the rest of the country.

"Construction of a highway to the remaining small village will be completed before the end of the year," he said.

Hansen was attracted to Yizhou by its beautiful scenery and folk songs in the Chinese movie Liu Sanjie, about an Yizhou native of the same name who was known as the queen of local folk songs.

He used to live a leisurely life in Yizhou's urban areas, walking his dog and having coffee in bars.

But Hansen said he was shocked when he was taken to Zhadong for the first time in March when the village Party chief, Xie Wanju, sought volunteers to help villagers plant passion fruit vines.

The natural scenery is very beautiful, but the villagers who remained were living very poor lives when most of the young people left to work elsewhere, Hansen said.

Zhadong villagers did not even have a road where they could ride their motorcycles. Many had to carry their agricultural products on their shoulders as they walked for several hours to bazaars to sell them, Hansen said.

Farmers could not transport their produce out of their village to sell due to the poor infrastructure at the time, he said, adding, "Zhadong lagged far behind the villages in Luxembourg."

On recent weekdays, Hansen has been to the village with other volunteers led by Xie to plant passion fruit, and to build and repair roads and water conservation facilities.

Wei Yongyuan, a Zhadong official, said Hansen is honest, hardworking and kindhearted. He has been well accepted by many villagers and has encouraged locals to work hard to escape from poverty.

Wei quoted some villagers as saying: "Even a foreigner works hard to help us become rich. Do we still have any reason to continue to be lazy."

Hansen added, "It is meaningful to be able to help the villagers out of poverty, and to be happy to live in such a beautiful place."