Xi has served the people since his youth

Residents of the village in which China's president spent nearly seven years recall a young man determined to improve their lives, as Huo Yan and Li Yang report from Yan'an, Shaanxi.

Liangjiahe village, a community of 120 homes scattered along a dry riverbed on the Loess Plateau in Yan'an, Northwest China's Shaanxi province, looks no different from the other valley hamlets in the region, except for the visitors lined up waiting to board electric minibuses to visit its cave dwellings and crofts.

From 1969 to 1975, President Xi Jinping lived and worked in the village as an educated youth during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) when he was ages 16 to 23.