Editor's note: CGTN's new series "Landing Home" profiles young adults from China's Taiwan Island who live, study and work on the Chinese mainland. Chasing their dreams across the Taiwan Straits, they are professionals from all walks of life. The series spotlights their stories in, hopes for and contributions to their new home.

"The island grows no grass, but stones," a traditional Chinese ballad says of Pingtan Island.

The island floating off China's southeastern coast is known for its stones, which helped build fort-like houses, but left the soil undesirable for agriculture.

But the rocks have been an inspiration for Lin Chih-yuan and his team, who saw in them a valuable opportunity to enliven an almost abandoned village.

Born in Chiayi City on Taiwan Island, Lin made his first trip to Pingtan County, southeast China's Fujian Province, with his parents in April 2015. The county comprises 126 islands and islets scattered in the Taiwan Straits and is the mainland's closest part to Taiwan, at just 68 nautical miles (about 126 km) away from Hsinchu City on the island region.

The main island, also known as Haitan Island, is the largest in the province and the fifth-largest nationwide.

Later in the same year, Lin traveled to Beigang, a village on the island's northeastern corner where old stone masonry buildings stand close to each other on a hillside by the sea.

The young man was mesmerized by the stunning scenery and warmth of villagers. "At that time, we decided to settle in Pingtan," Lin told CGTN.

The village was quiet and empty, he recalled. "When I first came, there were few youngsters and a lot more seniors. The village was quite pristine and not commercial."

For decades, the sturdy houses protected generations of islanders from violent tropical storms. But the village was gradually falling silent as the young left for big cities with better job opportunities, leaving the elderly behind.

The locals entrusted Lin with a secret, telling him that some stones on nearby mountains could make musical sounds. "When you tap on the stone, it will make the sound of gongs and drums. After we came here, we found what they said was true."

Lin had a light-bulb moment. "This place is amazing! [It would be great] if more tourists could see it," he thought to himself. 

So one year after settling down, he invited some of his friends from both sides of the Straits to join his team and opened, in 2016, the first guesthouse in the fishing village. He called it "Singing Stones."

Lin and his team moved the stones down from the mountains one by one. They turned them into musical instruments and placed them in the yard as a sign of the artistic and cultural mission of the guesthouse.

"I believe that if we want to be part of the village's growth, a B&B (bed-and-breakfast) is a channel for tourists to get to know the village easily," Lin said. "It was simple at first. We rented three or four houses in the village and gradually started to do our business."

The young team also hoped to help conserve the authenticity of the old buildings.

They rented the oldest places in town and fitted them with modern amenities without erasing their character. They kept some objects like dressers and closets, and transformed discarded items, like old boat decks and valves, into decorations.

They also followed a strict rule of occupying half of the space they rented and leaving the other half to the original owners. "It is, in essence, their home where their family used to live," Lin noted, adding that it was of utmost importance to maintain friendliness with the locals.

"When you come and live in the inns here, you will find that a lot of the locals still fish and farm. They plant peanuts and sweet potatoes," he said. This rural lifestyle is an appeal to urbanites who visit the island.

In this sense, the team has also launched tourism services related to the maritime culture of the island to engage locals and enrich visitors' experience.

"This approach is good for the development of the village. Only with the active participation of locals and their integration [in this project], can the village liven up."

Lin noted that the locals who used to work outside have gradually moved back here. Some of them have opened breakfast spots or eateries, and some opened inns. "In fact, they can always find a place and are doing their businesses well."

The 32-year-old entrepreneur, whose family originally hails from Pinghe County in Fujian's Zhangzhou, believes that rural vitalization is about improving life in the villages. "If people come here, so will profit."

The past years have seen a revival of the village. Guesthouses keep multiplying in Beigang, growing from just one in 2016 to over 100 today. Some 600,000 visitors made the trip to the small village in 2019 before the pandemic began, and the numbers continue to pick up.

By the end of 2020, the Fuzhou-Pingtan railway linking Fujian's provincial capital Fuzhou to the island, began operations after seven years of construction, allowing visitors from the mainland and Taiwan to travel more conveniently across the Taiwan Straits. It also made Pingtan a new popular destination. During this year's May Day holiday, the county received over 583,000 visitors, with tourism income reaching nearly 500 million yuan ($78.4 million). All the hotels in Beigang Village were fully booked half a month in advance.

"From the two village committees, and the cadres and villagers at grassroots level, to the new teams about to join us, and the young people from Taiwan like us who came across the Straits, everyone is indispensable for the village's development," Lin noted.

Lin's story has inspired more Taiwan youth to move in and contribute to the development of the village.

"It is a rural area filled with human kindness," Lin told CGTN. "We are living here. [We should] treat locals as our own family as we are the new villagers in Beigang."

The village is growing along with Pingtan Island and the hotelier continues his journey in the mainland. Five years into the project, Lin and his team have opened four inns and brought their concept for building better villages from Pingtan to Meizhou Island – the birthplace of Chinese sea goddess Mazu also in Fujian Province – and beyond.

"The mainland has an 18,000-kilometer coastline with more than 5,000 large or small islands. There are also numerous ancient villages that have been living on fishing for generations," he said.

"I hope that through my small efforts, more people can see the unique beauty of these places."

Reporters: Hong Yaobin, Zhang Wanbao, Wei Tianyao

Directors: Hong Yaobin, Zhang Wanbao

Cameramen: Zhang Wanbao, Hui Jie, Hong Yaobin

Video editor: Zhang Wanbao

Copy editors: Nadim Diab, Moosa Abbas

Cover photo designer: Feng Yuan

Project manager: Ai Yan

Chief editors: Chen Ran, Liu Yuqi

Producer: Dang Zheng

Supervisor: Zhang Shilei

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