Original?title:Across China: E-commerce fattens wallet in central China's"Taobao Village"

Tapping the phone screen with her wrinkly finger to send voice messages to customers, Guo Mingfeng sells another homemade turquoise bracelet out of her hometown in Xiaying Village in central China's Hubei Province.

"I can't read or write, but it does not affect my business," said Guo, 50. Guo mainly sells handicraft products via pictures and voice messages on the messaging service WeChat.

The craftswoman lives in the mountainous area of Yunxi County, Shiyan City. She used to be a tofu maker working from dawn to dusk all year round in the city but could barely make enough money to support her kids' schooling and her sick parents. In 2014, she was put on the local poverty list.

In the same year, her village, known for turquoise reserves and online turquoise businesses, was designated as a"Taobao Village." It is a title granted to villages with total annual e-commerce transactions of over 10 million yuan (1.54 million U.S. dollars).

They should also have more than 100 businesses, or at least 10 percent of households involved in e-commerce, as required by the title's creator Alibaba.

"Since some of my relatives profited from the industry, I thought maybe I could also give it a try. So I went back to my village," she said.

Guo then learned from her brother-in-law how to polish and shape the stones and how to use smartphones.

"My attempt has been a success. Though my hands have become calloused due to stone processing, I can earn around 200,000 yuan in profit every year," she said.

The poverty rate of Yunxi County once reached 32.7 percent, and Xiaying Village was listed as one of the most poverty-stricken villages in the county, according to Liu Tingzhou, Party chief of Xiaying Village.

"Our turquoise industry was good, but poor transportation and poor Internet access restricted the business in the mountains. Only a small number of villagers worked in the field," said Liu, adding that turquoise plus e-commerce could be the solution to leading villagers out of poverty.

Liu then organized free training courses for locals to learn how to do business online. They rebuilt roads and upgraded the village's Internet network. In 2019, a 5G network extended there to help villagers sell goods via livestreaming.

"Step by step, our village changed, and it shook off poverty in 2017," Liu said. In 2019, nearly 700 villagers engaged in e-commerce, running more than 500 online stores, and the annual sales exceeded 200 million yuan.

As the turquoise resource is exhaustible, the village has mapped out a new plan for the future.

"Our county is also a typical agricultural county with rich planting and animal-raising industries. E-commerce plus agriculture could be another solution," said Liu.

With the help of the local government, local e-commerce entrepreneurs provided more jobs to poor people and signed agreements to help farmers sell their products. It included chicken, pork, tea, mushrooms, and honey for sale across the whole country. In 2019, agricultural product sales accounted for more than 30 percent of the village's e-commerce revenue.

Zhou Hua, a previously impoverished villager, saw her income increase three times since working in a local tea factory.

Zhou, 33, once worked as a waitress in a hotpot restaurant in downtown Shiyan, and her husband was a worker at construction sites."We didn't earn much and had to leave our son alone in the village," Zhou said.

Both Zhou and her husband now work in the tea factory close to their home. Their family income can reach around 100,000 yuan a year.

"I am satisfied with my life. My wallet gets fatter, and the best thing is that I can accompany my son every day," Zhou said."I hope our days will be better in the new year," she added.