A love that isn't influenced by money

A power outage occurred while I was interviewing Liao Yanfei, head of Jinsha village, in the small room where he stores cured meat.

Without a fuss, Liao's wife, Wang Yinhua, found two candles so the couple's young twins could continue with their homework. To my surprise, the 9-year-olds, a boy and a girl, didn't make a sound; instead they carried on writing quietly, except for one occasion when they asked me if I would like a snack. Meanwhile, Wang showed me photos of the family she has stored in her mobile phone, saying she looks at them every now and then: "I like reviewing the time we (she and Liao) got together, although sometimes things were tough." When he was a child, Liao's family was the poorest in Jinsha in the Xiangxi Tujia and Miao autonomous prefecture, Hunan province, and power cuts were a regular occurrence. "But poverty didn't stop us pursuing our own happiness," he said.