City dwellers live a modern rural dream in Guizhou

Chashan village approach to development belies region's backward image, reports Lan Lan in Xiuwen, Guizhou

At first glance, the narrow, long-winding dirt road that leads to Chashan village looks no different from anywhere else in rural China. But the lush green meadows, herds of livestock grazing contentedly, and rows and rows of gray cement kiwi fruit trellis on either side of the road that you chance upon after arrival in the village have a different story to tell.

It is the story of how a few resolute individuals beat the odds to put the remote rural village in mountainous Xiuwen county, in Southwest China's Guizhou province, at the forefront of sustainable rural development in China.