MY BEAUTIFUL RUSTIC MAKEOVER

A government push for rural revitalization is paying dividends as villages thrive economically and find a new sense of pride

Before they began building a public hall in the village of Wang, in Zhejiang province, the village enjoyed ties to fame that many of its inhabitants were utterly ignorant of.

The name of the building, Wang Jing Memorial Hall, begins to tell the story. Many of the inhabitants of the village of Wang share their name, China's most common family name, with it, and many of those inhabitants have lineage to Wang Jing, whose name graces the hall.