HK entrepreneur brings know-how to Ningxia

"I wanted to have some experience living and working in the nation's northwest. I don't have big goals, but I hope my work can benefit the local people," he said. "My family members didn't support my decision at first, as I had to give up my business and comfortable life in Hong Kong. But my savings were enough to support the family, and my mother, my wife and our three children moved to Yinchuan with me."

The language barrier was the biggest problem Tong encountered.

"The villagers speak with a very strong accent, and I could only understand about 10 percent of what they said. I spoke rather poor Chinese at the time due to my accent, so the local villagers could hardly understand me either," he said.

"I'm grateful that my warmhearted colleagues served as my interpreters and helped me communicate with the villagers. Now, I can understand about 70 percent of what they are saying."

He also had some troubles with technology. "The working environment was not very good, which I expected. I used to work in the internet sector and was used to high-speed internet and good computers, so it took a rather long time to adapt to the computers in the village committee office," he said.

In April last year, Tong got in touch with some strawberry growers in Jiangsu province to introduce the crop to the village. "The village used to grow tomatoes, celery and watermelons, which have lower added values. Village development depends on higher-quality industries, so we've made efforts to add value to the local agricultural industry by introducing strawberry planting and setting up produce-processing companies."

Tong said that the strawberry growers from Jiangsu have a lot of experience and reliable retail channels, and they earn an average net profit of 600,000 yuan ($82,367) per hectare.

"A strawberry grower from Jiangsu rented 16 greenhouses in our village and offered free technology guidance and retail services to the villagers growing strawberries," he said.

Tong has also made efforts to improve the education of children in the village. He initiated a voluntary educational campaign last summer for children ages 6 to 12, teaching them mathematics, English and Chinese poems using games and videos.