From quiet fishing post to film set and tourism hot spot

Set-jetting is simple: watch a film, then visit its location.

Ya Lan has done it twice, traveling to the same island 11 years apart.

What she saw in between was not just an island changing, but time, tourism and cinema quietly rewriting its soul.

Back in April 2015, after watching director Han Han's 2014 debut film The Continent — a road movie featuring three young people growing up on Dongji Island — she learned about the filming location, which was the island itself. Known collectively as the Dongji Islands, they are the easternmost inhabited group of islands of the Chinese mainland, located in Zhejiang province, and mainly comprise four inhabited islands: Miaozihu, Qingbang, Dongfushan, and Huangxing.

Among them, Dongfushan is promoted as the place where the first ray of sunlight of the 21st century fell on the Chinese mainland.

Drawn by its romantic geography, she decided to see Dongfushan for herself.

What stayed with her were the layered stone houses climbing the hillside, the four-hour hike around the isle, modest guesthouses with no Wi-Fi, frequent power outages, and a handful of restaurants.

That was it. That was Dongfushan.

But everything changed when she recently returned to the group of islands. That visit was mainly motivated by director Fang Li's acclaimed 2023 documentary, The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru, which recounts the story of how local islanders rescued British prisoners of war from drowning in October 1942.

This time, she set her sights on Miaozihu, the central island of the group.

"Before the boat even docked, I could see the well-renovated buildings, the colorful neon signs of restaurants and homestays," she recalls.

"It was completely different from the impression I had of this place."

Today, the islands have been transformed. A modernized power grid is in place. The passenger ferry terminal has been expanded. Seafood stalls and coffee shops line the streets. Well-paved hiking trails circle the islands.

What once existed as a remote, geographically unique place has become a tourist hot spot, welcoming around 419,000 visitors last year.

Zhong Lei, a local islander, runs one homestay on Dongfushan and another on Miaozihu.

"Few people used to come to the islands," he says, "mostly art students looking for places to sketch, or foreign tourists who wanted some peace and quiet. But over the last couple of years, it's been busy year-round. I barely have to worry about occupancy rates anymore."

Zhong used to run a business at Shenjiamen Port in Zhoushan, but when he saw his home island gaining recognition through films, he decided to return and build a career in local tourism.

"There are more and more homestays on the island now," he adds."What we're working on is how to improve quality and stand out to visitors."

The island has also drawn many outsiders who have decided to stay.

Zhu Li is one of them. Once a high-earning sales manager at a real estate company in Zhoushan, she grew tired of working until 3 or 4 am during busy seasons and being on call at all hours. So she quit and came to Miaozihu to volunteer at a youth hostel.

"After I arrived, I thought, this place is really beautiful. The sea is truly blue. We're in Zhoushan — it's not far from here — but I had never seen blue seawater there, only yellow. I never knew there was a place this blue," she says.

During her time off, she went fishing with friends, hiked around the island, and picked up trash from the beaches.

Just one month of volunteering convinced her to stay and start a business on the island. She and her friend took over an old house and renovated it themselves by painting the walls, refinishing old tables and chairs with veneer, installing faucets, and patching the roof.

"Because supplies have to be shipped in from the mainland and getting rid of large items of trash is a hassle, we had no choice but to repurpose old things and build whatever we needed with our own hands. In the process, I felt empowered."

Today, she and her friend run four shops on the island, selling coffee, desserts, and their own branded cultural products.

"Life is busy, but fulfilling," she says. "I cherish my free lifestyle now.

"When I worked in the city, every day was the same routine. Now, even though I'm busy, I'm busy with my own things — the small tasks I actually care about.

"Back in the city, I was sensitive to every noise. But here, even with all the hustle and bustle of local island life, I sleep soundly."

Over the past decade, the island has transformed with each passing year — welcoming tourists, embracing returnees, and giving newcomers a place to start over.

Set-jetting brought Ya Lan here. But what she witnessed, across 11 years and two trips, was an island learning to embrace change without losing itself.