When Lai Yumei quit her job in 2001 at a plastic flower factory in Guangzhou at the age of 32, the migrant worker had made a plan for her future back home in the mountains near Guilin in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. She wanted to plant cumquats, because she found that the fruit was popular and expensive in Guangzhou.

She is now recognized as the most successful businesswoman in Baisha, where she employs more than 100 villagers at a 20-hectare orchard, a 60-hectare tea plantation, a restaurant and a hotel. Her business now generates a profit of around 30 million yuan ($4.8 million) annually.

Busily serving dinners at her two-story wooden restaurant built halfway up a mountain, she offers strangers no clue that connects the smiling dark-skinned woman in plain clothes with a wealthy entrepreneur.