Rugao-area village prospers by branching out

Farmers shift from traditional crops to bonsai trees, bringing in big money

Zhai Buiying sat in the living room of her grandson's home, an old woman in red silk, a frail and feisty anachronism among the modern furniture and electronics and other accouterments of 21st-century life.

She thumped a tiny fist against her chest, struggled to her feet, and began to stamp and sway. Her scratchy voice found a melody, a song her father taught her to sing while working in the fields of her youth.