Yiwu: Once regarded as among the poorest and most dilapidated villages in Yiwu, Zhejiang province, Lizu village has now become one of the most popular destinations for tourists.
“I was so busy that I didn’t even have time for a drink of water,” said Feng Ling, who runs a small shop in the village, selling assorted sweetened drinks. Over the Labor Day holiday running from April 29 to May 3, Feng said, her shop catered to an average of 300 customers each day. If that doesn’t sound like a lot, note that the number of all permanent residents in Lizu village stands at a little over 700. “It may sound ridiculous, but even our own villagers used to dislike the village,” said Fang Haolong, Party secretary of Lizu.
Changes started to come to the place in late 2003. That June, President Xi Jinping, at the time secretary of the Communist Party of China’s Zhejiang Provincial Committee, initiated the Green Rural Revival Program to transform some 10,000 out of 40,000 villages in Zhejiang in the next five years through ecological development and turn 1,000 of them into showcases of moderate prosperity in all respects. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
