Happy villages (3)

"There was a tradition that families with the most water vats secured the best marriages," Wang says.

Wang Chunrong, a member of the village’s Party Committee, adds: "Due to the horrible sanitation many women suffered from gynecological diseases and most families were too poor to afford medicines."

Since Hainan province was established in 1988 as a special economic zone, many young Meishe villagers migrated to the cities to study or work. They returned with money and the knowledge to rebuild their hometown.

Since the late 1990s, the local government provided finance to improve infrastructure, including building a highway to Haikou, repaving the roads and streets in the villages and building facilities like theaters, sports venues and village squares.

In 2002, tap water and electricity became available in Meishe, while the local government introduced farming tourism to help locals increase their incomes.

"We have always had wonderful volcanic scenery and tropical forests, but only in recent years have we realized they are a precious gift and we must make use of them to improve the lives of local people," says Liao Xiaoping, a media official in Haikou.

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