Shining example

In 2011, Sun was invited by the local government of Xinyang to participate in the renovation of  rural houses as part of the urbanization of rural areas. Sun said Haotang village is an example and he wants to use the model of Haotang to build more villages.

"I want to make Haotang village a meaningful place. Figuring out how to renovate a brick or a corner of Haotang has forced me to do a lot of thinking," Sun said.

Sun also invited designers and architects from other provinces to diversify the design. 

"The principle is that we have to respect the will of local villagers. We won't start construction before the owners of the houses agree with the design," Sun said.

In order to persuade villagers to accept the new design, Sun had to make modifications to the sketches many times. Once, a villager asked Sun to narrow the space of the corridors in order to save space for the rooms, and Sun had to work on the design for days before the final version satisfied the house owner.

It has never been easy to persuade local villagers to accept his house designs, due to their different aesthetic values. "Villagers began to think that the common design style of decorating outer walls of the houses with tilts are beautiful, but we have to renew people's ideas," Sun said.

Sun's design is based on the fusion of local traditional buildings with white walls and tilted roof and modern design. 

He insisted on purchasing the construction materials locally in order to make the houses compatible with their surroundings.

Sun is nothing if not persistent. Sometimes, villagers would insist that the road should  have straight paving while Sun strongly opposed it, insisting on building curved roads to follow the shape of meandering courtyards in rural areas.

Renewed economy

Five years have gone, and now Haotang village has become a famous tourism village in Henan Province. With two lotus ponds, the village draws in thousands of visitors each year. During the past two months, visitors flooded in to visit Haotang village. 

The road leading to the village now is clogged with cars and vehicles during weekends.

A chain of ecological tourism has taken shape. A lot of young people have returned home and opened restaurants, bike shops, hotels and shops, which have become a common sight in the village.

The economy has also picked up due to the development of organic agriculture. Before, one kilogram of tea was sold for a few dozen yuan, but after they planted organic tea, one kilogram can be sold for over 1,000 yuan at peak seasons.

The core concept, Sun said, is to attract youngsters back to villages. "The biggest problem in China's vast rural areas is that young people are leaving and never plan to return. Rural areas will disappear if this continues," Sun said.

Five years ago, when Sun first came to the village, the young people had gone and there were no teachers in the primary school.

Now, after the houses were renovated, at least 80 percent of the villagers have come back to the village, and more and more are considering coming back because of the boom in ecological tourism.

Sun wants to "make villages look like villages." 

Apart from building houses for villagers, he has made great efforts to preserve and retrieve the folk culture. For instance, he plans to set up an exhibition center to show the comparison between the old village and its current situation, in order to teach people to accept environmentally friendly attitudes.

"There is still a long way to go, but my dream will never stop," Sun said.