Tongban's dream of prosperity

Tongban Village, lying in the mountainous area of southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, was once called the "senior village" because lots of young people brought their children to work in cities and left all the elderly behind. While in the spring of 2013, a rural cooperative was set up, which attracted many young villagers back home. A vanishing village gradually comes back to life.

Like many other villages in China, Tongban used to be full of life with more 20 households living on planting plum tree. Since the 1990s, young people started to work or move outside the mountains, with only the elderly left behind.

But those who have left are reluctant to see the decline of their hometown, so they set up the "Tongban Mountain Fruits Farmer Cooperative" at the beginning of 2013, pooling of lands as shares, to plant plum tree and wild grapes in a scale and boost local tourism.

Long Gexiong, 46, the head of the cooperative, no longer went out of the village, so did two others members in the a day of labor, Long Feilian and Long Feizhen. After a year of pioneering work, they have planted several hundred acres of plums, grapes and rape flowers and repaired the touring roads around the village. The number of residents in the village has increased to 17.

Residents are now looking forward to their future when all the roads are repaired and the fruit crops have a bumper harvest. Tongban's prosperity is around the corner.