Once a poverty-stricken rural area in Zhashui county, Northwest of China's Shaanxi province, Zhongnanshan village is located at the foot of the Zhongnanshan Mountains. In recent years, the villagers have made full use of local resources and transformed the place into an eco-tourism destination.

The village now provides accommodation, shopping, sightseeing and entertainment services, including 20 outdoor adventures and sporting events for the brave. Ecological resources have offered more opportunities for the locals to start businesses and helped them to improve their lives.

Yang Baoping, in his 50s, is a skilled wood sculptor from Xi'an. He visited the village in 2018 and was deeply impressed by the pleasant environment and favourable rent policy. It led him to open a store there the next year to sell his wood sculptures and other cultural items. It is in this village that Yang has lived up to his dreams of self-fulfillment.

Mrs. Zhang started her dream here in 2018 when she ran a store selling varieties of fungus and other specialty products of the region. She said her business generated 150,000 yuan in revenue in 2019, with a 60,000 yuan profit.

Yang Chuanhong and his wife Cheng Xianqin returned to their home village here in 2018 from Fujian province where they had worked as migrant workers. Having received government-funded trainings, they opened a snack stand in 2019 to sell sizzling hot plate bean curd. In the past, the couple could only earn about 30,000 yuan a year. Now, the figure is up to 100,000.