Metamorphosis

At the foot of Laotieshan, generations of villagers have depended on a single electroplating factory to make a living. In 2012, Laotieshan was designated a national nature reserve. After repeated appeals from higher-level departments and village officials, and seeing the damage the electroplating factory had caused to the environment over the years, Lin Zhiyong, who was preparing to take over from his father, Lin Weimin, faced off against him. In the end, he steeled himself and shut down the factory, earning himself the village's scorn as a "family fortune squanderer."

The workers his father had personally trained were suddenly out of work. With elderly parents to support and children to raise, Lin Zhiyong could not help feeling guilty. Taking advantage of the call for rural revitalization and reform, he led everyone down the path of revitalization and development. But after a series of setbacks, he fell into despair.

When he was utterly disheartened and looked back over the road he had traveled, a flock of Oriental storks caught his eye. Seizing this opportunity, he made their protection a priority and registered the brand name Meiguan. He developed a series of ecotourism and agricultural projects, and together with the villagers, transformed the old village of Laotieshan into Meiguan Village, a livable, ecological, environmentally friendly, green community for the new era.