Hansen was attracted to Yizhou by its beautiful scenery and folk songs in the Chinese movie Liu Sanjie, about an Yizhou native of the same name who was known as the queen of local folk songs.
He used to live a leisurely life in Yizhou's urban areas, walking his dog and having coffee in bars.
But Hansen said he was shocked when he was taken to Zhadong for the first time in March when the village Party chief, Xie Wanju, sought volunteers to help villagers plant passion fruit vines.
The natural scenery is very beautiful, but the villagers who remained were living very poor lives when most of the young people left to work elsewhere, Hansen said.
Zhadong villagers did not even have a road where they could ride their motorcycles. Many had to carry their agricultural products on their shoulders as they walked for several hours to bazaars to sell them, Hansen said.
Farmers could not transport their produce out of their village to sell due to the poor infrastructure at the time, he said, adding, "Zhadong lagged far behind the villages in Luxembourg."
On recent weekdays, Hansen has been to the village with other volunteers led by Xie to plant passion fruit, and to build and repair roads and water conservation facilities.
Wei Yongyuan, a Zhadong official, said Hansen is honest, hardworking and kindhearted. He has been well accepted by many villagers and has encouraged locals to work hard to escape from poverty.
Wei quoted some villagers as saying: "Even a foreigner works hard to help us become rich. Do we still have any reason to continue to be lazy."
Hansen added, "It is meaningful to be able to help the villagers out of poverty, and to be happy to live in such a beautiful place."
Livestock boost
In the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, residents' lives in the Overseas Chinese Village in Kariz township, Qitai county, have been improving steadily.
This progress was achieved after the Overseas Chinese Office of the State Council and overseas Chinese offices at every level in the region took targeted measures in 2014 to alleviate poverty.
In the past two years alone, the Overseas Chinese Office of the State Council has invested more than 1.6 million yuan to build six new breeding centers, each occupying more than 300 square meters, in the village. It has also bought each household seven ewes to help them develop their livestock breeding business and increase their annual incomes.
All households are encouraged to become shareholders in a cooperative established to help them improve their lives and escape from poverty. Villagers are allowed a share of a year-end bonus, which the cooperative has promised to provide with at least 50 percent of its profits.
To increase employment, government departments have opened training courses for local women to learn traditional embroidery, and the village has established an embroidery association.
"Poverty alleviation efforts have achieved results, as the village can now develop by relying on its own industries and production, and local residents' lives have increasingly improved in the past year," said Yan Xiangsheng, Party chief of Kariz.
Zheng Caixiong, Zhao Ruixue, Li Lei, Mao Weihua and Shi Ruipeng contributed to this story.
