Fujian province's Houhuang village has become a rural getaway for urbanites, with its proximity to the city, green fields, clean river and ancient buildings. (Photo by Yang Feiyue/China Daily)

The woman is content with her life here. She loves interacting with guests and has staged events to promote turning waste into environmentally-friendly detergent.

Cai's restaurant is just one of the fun experiences visitors can enjoy in Houhuang.

They can also pick organic strawberries, wax apples, watermelons, lemons, oranges, tomatoes, pumpkins and pitayas at the fruit park.

An option for open-air cooking using old-fashioned kitchen tools and firewood is also available in the village.

For those who want to get their hands dirty, they can roll up their sleeves and plant seeds or catch loach in waterlogged fields.

For those interested in history, folk art and local traditions, the museums are worth exploring.

The folk art museum has 300 items, including local farming and textile production tools.

Other museums give visitors a glimpse of well-known local clans.

Meanwhile, you can see that Xu is proud of the changes in the village, and he has reason to be.

Everything was dirty and in chaos when Xu was appointed director of the village in 2006.

Animal feces and sewage were all over the place, he says.

So, Xu first asked every household to raise no more than five chickens and ducks and shut all the pig breeding sites.

"It was not reasonable to forbid locals from breeding fowls as every household had leftover food, which would otherwise be wasted," he says.

But, he ensured that locals took care of the animal waste.

"Also, if someone wanted to raise animals like pigs, they had to use a special facility that met government regulations."