Fresh mountain air, newfound prosperity

There is an old poem that describes poverty-stricken Wulong county in days gone by. It translates: "In remote mountainous Wulong, people only eat sweet potatoes, corn and potato. Nobody eats egg noodles, except for a woman who has given birth."

Several decades ago, it took 15 days to transport goods from downtown Chongqing to Wulong - by boat to Fuling via the Yangtze River, and then on via the Wujiang River. People then carried the goods to the county's mountain villages.

For hundreds of years, farmers in impoverished Fazi village had only one water source: rain. They usually dug holes in the ground to store water, which was far from clean or safe.