A Beautiful Mountain Village

Between 1995 and 2015, rural Northeast China underwent enormous changes, including the conversion of farmland back to forest, the abolition of the agricultural tax, and the emergence of a new era of production cooperatives. Amid this sweeping change, the heroine, Chen Xiuli, relies on her own hard work and ingenuity to sell medicinal herbs and partner with the government to establish a wild-vegetable processing plant, taking the region’s natural bounty to markets around the world. Later, riding the wave of the government’s plans to build a renowned center for traditional Chinese medicine, Chen Xiuli adapts to the times and establishes her own Chinese herbal medicine processing plant. By bringing local resources together, she carves out a path to prosperity that suits her business and benefits the rural economy.