Villages call time on lavish banquets

Birthdays, new houses, weddings, funerals - every occasion was once an opportunity for a huge banquet, a time for China's rural residents to show off their wealth and save face.

In Malu, a village with a population of 2,000 in Hunan province, firecrackers worth at least 3 million yuan ($477,000) were set off every year before 2017. Most were used to celebrate weddings, funerals, births or graduations.

"Several truckloads of firecrackers were lit each time, and the roads were blanketed with red wrappers," said Wang Liangyuan, the village head.