Official works hard for his remote hometown

In a remote border area of Southwest China's Yunnan province, the town of Dulongjiang is home to the largest number of the country's smallest ethnic group, the Derung. The town, surrounded by forests with the scenic Dulong River cutting through the valley, neighbors Myanmar in the west and the Tibet autonomous region in the north, and is home to 4,095 Derung, almost 70 percent of the Derung population in China.

Gao Derong, a town official who is a former teacher, is known to fellow residents as the "DerungKing" for his devotion and contributions to the town's development.

Born in 1954, two years after the minority was named by then premier Zhou Enlai, "Derung" meaning "a race under the sun", Gao has served in an official capacity for the town, county and the Nujiang Lisu autonomous prefecture.