University graduate returns to revive village

Grassroots official used creativity to put home on tourist map

For a girl from rural China, a dream job could be anything, except perhaps coming back to work in the village where she was born.

But Zhang Guifang, a 24-year-old college graduate, made a bold decision to return to her village in Central China's Henan province, even though she had been running a business in Tianjin for over a year.

"I didn't want to return at first, and my startup in Tianjin was making a profit, which I wanted to continue," she said.

However, constant appeals from fellow villagers changed Zhang's mind, and she returned last year.

As a young member of the Communist Party of China, she was elected Party secretary of Sanjia village in Hebi city's Shilin town in December last year.

She spent five months planning the creation of wall paintings of colorful sunflowers, wings and balloons to decorate village houses with the aim of creating what she referred to as a "rainbow village".

Her hard work and creativity paid off. For the first time, Sanjia has become famous, with pictures of the village going viral on the internet.