When driving into Xiaogang, a first-time visitor could easily miss a restaurant near the entrance of the village in Fengyang county, Chuzhou, Anhui province.

Its owner Yan Jinchang is a fit, healthy and sprightly 77-year-old. Years in farming fields helped build his strong body. Some customers may visit just for the food but others want a taste of history.

"As long as they're willing to listen, I am always happy to tell when I'm not that busy preparing the food," Yan says, cheerfully.

The night of Nov 24, 1978, forever changed Xiaogang. A bold decision made by Yan and his fellow villagers utterly altered the development path of the Chinese countryside.

Eighteen villagers, including Yan secretly, squeezed into a thatched cabin with earthen walls. They were confused and hesitant. However, once a flame appeared in their hearts, it could not be extinguished.

"We just didn't want to starve any longer," Yan recalls.

Up until 1978, Xiaogang was hit by national setbacks－the great famine and the following the "cultural revolution" (1966-76). And that year, a devastating drought came. But farmers were bonded by the collectivized farming policy. No matter how much they grew, they could only rely on the rationing system. Many local farmers thus fled to cities to beg for food.

Yan says: "How could people be encouraged to work harder if it didn't matter at all?"

The 18 men put their thumb print on an agreement, which devolved production responsibility of farming fields to households. They would independently cultivate the lands, and individually keep some surplus after handing in a quota.

This system was seen as taboo in China for decades as it was viewed as an indication of "capitalism", and the villagers prepared to become prisoners. In the agreement, they wrote: "if that happened to anyone of us, the others promised to raise our kids until they reached 18."

Xiaogang villagers' efficiency brought a harvest the next spring: 65.5 metric tonnes of grain were produced in the village, four times of the average annual yield during the "cultural revolution".

Yan and his fellows did not face prison. In a wave of change sweeping across China, versions of the Xiaogang pact mushroomed elsewhere in Anhui, and finally won the State leader's Deng Xiaoping's support in 1980 despite some debate.

In 1982, adoption of household contract responsibility system officially became a national policy: farmland was still State-owned, but farmers were able to contract the farmland on a household basis.

Xiaogang was thus hailed as the origin of China's reform and opening-up in the countryside. The paper with 18 thumb prints is now held by the National Museum of China as a key historical document.

Thorough change

The thatched cabin where the agreement was signed is one of the few places in today's Xiaogang enabling us to still see what the village looked like 42 years ago. Last year, it was even inscribed as a key cultural heritage site under national-level protection, a title bestowed on sites of the greatest significance in Chinese history.

And a new exhibition hall marking the 18 villagers' brave move in 1978 also opened in 2014 to remind people of the immense change.

These sites become hot spots for people to admire the pioneering spirit of Xiaogang. In 2019, this village with 4,200 residents received 1.1 million visits, according to statistics of the CPC committee of Xiaogang.

There were only four tables when Yan first opened the restaurant in 2008. But there are 23 now, and he has reserved room to put in another 10. Last year, he earned 300,000 yuan ($43,800) from this diner.

"Though people live a much better life now, they also want to know where these better days come from and for this reason they visit Xiaogang," an emotional Yan says. "That makes my business boom."

Yan's family once cultivated over more than 2 hectares of land. However, all the land has been permanently rented for others to grow fruit and develop industry. The energetic man is also a manager of a pomegranate plantation.

"I'm a farmer," he says. "And the experience growing grains has told me: happiness can only fall upon us when we work really hard no matter how time changes. No fruit will harvest if we get lazy."

Tourists also have given a new face to tradition. For example, Fengyang Flower Drum used to be a ballad widely sung by those who fled from Xiaogang and other nearby villages in days gone by to beg for food in cities. Deng Fanlan, 75, was one of the beggars in the 1960s. Her family's life was hugely improved after adoption of the household contract responsibility system.

"Some old melody remains, but we've changed the lyrics," Deng, now a city-level inheritor of intangible cultural heritage, says. "There're so many changes that can continuously inspire our new works".

Deng and several other family members composed a band. They were hired by a tourism development company in Xiaogang and regularly perform the ballad near the remaining thatched shelter. They earn more than 3,000 yuan a month.

"Only when people remember the tough years in the past can they cherish today's life, and are motivated to have an even better tomorrow," she says.

New path to the future

Li Jinzhu, Party chief of Xiaogang, understands the importance of farming to ensure food security. Though the household contract responsibility system greatly encouraged farmers in the past decades, the separate plots with different conditions also brought difficulties for agricultural machinery and massive plantations. Consequently, he launched a program to transform the lands with upgraded facilities.

By 2019, 90 percent of about 350 hectares of farming land in Xiaogang was improved to be "high-standard fields", which requires square shapes as well as well-equipped irrigation and road systems.

And the fields also offer a new attraction for tourists to take photos and upload to online social media. Zhu Daoyan is such a "tourist". Growing up in Xiaogang and now working in factory in nearby Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province, she returns to her hometown more and more frequently in recent years.

"Every time I come back, I'd like to upload some clips of these beautiful fields to my Douyin account," she says. "It's not only for nostalgia. It also reminds that I'd return here to work one day."

As Li says, industry is a key to make Xiaogang villagers rich, but the new industry is still deeply rooted in the agrarian land. In 2018, a 5 square kilometer industrial park opened in the village, attracting dozens of enterprises.

Fujian province-based Panpan Foods Investment Co, came to the park, creating over 1,500 jobs and turning grain into popular snacks among urban residents, annually valuing over 30 million yuan. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak this year, the logistics hub of Panpan for online shopping is also set in Xiaogang, with sales estimating to reach 150 million yuan this year.

And a processing plant for parboiled rice in the industrial park not only explored how high added-value can be developed from crops but also shows how "new villagers" in Xiaogang care for a country's destiny. In February, when Wuhan in Hubei province was hard hit by COVID-19, 12 metric tonnes of rice were transported to the frontline from here to support for the medical workers for free.

Other than that, the collectively-owned enterprises in Xiaogang combined to offer a 11-million-yuan income to the village last year, Li says. Every resident in Xiaogang got an annual bonus of 520 yuan.

It seems trivial to the 25,600 yuan annual per-capita disposable income in the village－with a 12.3 percent year-on-year increase－but, for locals, it is a valued gift.

"It's not some cold money," Li says. "We'd like people to feel emotionally attached to this land."

In Chinese, 520 sounds like "I love you".

Nevertheless, the bulging purses does not mean a extravagant lifestyle. Yan, a witness of history, may have deeper feelings.

"I know how hunger feels," Yan says. "As the country now calls us to save on food, it's better not to forget the starving years.

"I've always suggested customers not to order too much food," he laughs.