"When I was a child, I always hoped the village could become beautiful and my family could become well-off. Today, my hopes are gradually coming true." On March 8, at the Guangxi commemorative conference marking the 114th International Women's Day, themed "Forging Ahead on the New Journey with the Party, Making Contributions in the New Era," hosted by the Women's Federation of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Xie Bingmei, a post-90s Party general branch secretary and village committee director from Daxian Village, Jintian Town, Guiping City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, shared her story of returning home to lead villagers in starting businesses and becoming prosperous.

One day in June 2020, a phone call marked a turning point in Xie Bingmei's life. At the time, the two village committees of Daxian Village were up for re-election, and the old village secretary hoped she would return to take over. Something of an "idealist," she was tempted. The night she received the call, she stayed up all night researching cases of people returning home to start businesses. "I was a left-behind child myself, so I deeply understand the hardships and difficulties of those left behind in the village and those who go out to work. Moreover, both my bachelor's and master's degrees are in administrative management. I hope to use the knowledge I've gained to change the backward face of my hometown."

At the time, Xie Bingmei had already found a good job in Guangzhou after earning her master's degree from Jinan University. When people around her learned she was returning to the village, many did not understand. A few words from her advisor helped her make up her mind: "If you do well, then do it well. If you really can't manage, the worst case is you come back. What does a young person have to fear? People should have some ideals." So, filled with passion, Xie Bingmei quit her job and returned home to devote herself to rural revitalization.

The first step after returning home was to build a team. There was a young woman in the village named Huang Jinping, born in 1997 and a graduate of Guangxi Minzu University. Xie Bingmei wanted to encourage her to return and help build the village, but met strong opposition from Huang's family. Facing her family's objections, Huang Jinping shot back: "If Sister Bingmei can come back, why can't I?"

And so, through the efforts of Xie Bingmei and others, a young and energetic team of village cadres gradually took shape.

Daxian Village used to be seriously dirty, messy, and poor. The whole village had only one garbage collection point, which was always cleared late, with mosquitoes and flies everywhere. Many people were put off by the village environment and unwilling to return. Learning of this, Xie Bingmei decided to start with improving the living environment. On one hand, she improved infrastructure so that all 16 production teams in the village had their own garbage collection points; on the other hand, she standardized the management of sanitation workers so that garbage could be cleared promptly every day.

Due to insufficient funding, Xie Bingmei actively mobilized villagers to participate in the construction to reduce costs. When the sanitation workers could not afford garbage trucks, she went to the dealership herself to act as guarantor. With the cooperation of the villagers and the efforts of the village committee, Daxian Village became cleaner and fresher, and villagers could directly feel the changes. Xie Bingmei's dedicated and heartfelt service also won over many hearts.

Today, Daxian Village also has public activity venues such as a basketball court, a library, a convenience cultural corridor, and a small garden, and villagers' lives are becoming ever richer.

"In the village, you need something to do and money to earn to truly live there with peace of mind." In addition to improving the living environment, Xie Bingmei also kept her eye on new paths for industrial development, trying every way to fatten villagers' wallets.

Xie Bingmei first upgraded and transformed Daxian Village's existing industries, helping them with brand promotion. When she first returned home, the village had a soy sauce factory, founded from scratch by Lan Bairen, a formerly impoverished household, and his brothers. Because they were not good at marketing, they could only sell under other brands at stalls in town. The soy sauce itself was purely naturally brewed with no additives, but its taste was not as good as products on the market, leading some to question its quality.

"If he doesn't know how to package and promote it, his strengths will become weaknesses." After learning the situation, in order to help Lan Bairen expand the market, Xie Bingmei re-analyzed the product's strengths and weaknesses, built a brand, changed the packaging, and highlighted the product's advantages. At the same time, she actively helped Lan Bairen connect with promotional channels to expand awareness and contacted livestreaming platforms to help him sell his goods.

Today, under the leadership of the village committee, Lan Bairen's soy sauce factory produces 200,000 jin per year. When business is busy, he hires neighbors to help, driving employment and income growth for villagers. "The factory's annual sales reached 2 million yuan last year. Under Secretary Xie's guidance, I also added doubanjiang production, which has been well received by the market," Lan Bairen said.

On the other hand, Xie Bingmei also actively explored directions for the collective economy. In preliminary research, she found that health and wellness was a sunrise industry, and the area was rich in agricultural products that are both food and medicine, such as Chinese yam. So she set her sights on Chinese herbal medicine cultivation: "If you plant fruits and vegetables and they don't sell, everything is lost. But planting Chinese herbal medicines preserves value and is easy to process and store, with lower market risk."

Once the direction was set, land and funding became problems. In the early days of starting up there was little money, and land still had to be rented. Xie Bingmei encountered many obstacles when negotiating land transfers with villagers. "This is public business, so why use my family's land?" "If you use my land, what if I want to farm it myself?" Facing villagers' concerns, Xie Bingmei took the initiative to hold forums, explaining the village committee's plans and ideas to the villagers. Starting from the villagers' vital interests, she coordinated the rights and interests of all parties: if a villager wanted to farm some land themselves, she set aside a small plot nearby for them; for those truly unwilling to rent, she skipped them and first did what she could, letting villagers see real results.

Through the dedicated and heartfelt efforts of Xie Bingmei and others, more and more villagers joined the effort to develop the collective economy. Some villagers even came to her on their own initiative and said: "Rent it if you want. If you don't have money, just treat it as doing something for the community. If you fail, I'll just treat it as leaving the land fallow for a year. If you succeed, we'll all be better off."

And so, with Chinese herbal medicine cultivation and processing as the focus, Daxian Village's collective economy flourished, with income tripling in two years. Industrial development also gave more than 100 left-behind women in the village the opportunity to work near home.

"There's no secret to being a village cadre—you just have to consider issues more from the villagers' perspective." As a village cadre, Xie Bingmei often feels that in addition to maintaining professionalism, organizational and coordination skills are also very important, and the prerequisite for exercising these skills is earning the people's trust and their emotional recognition.

The village's industrial development brought great changes to the family of Liu Xiaoping, a left-behind woman in Daxian Village. Previously, she had no work or income at home. She had to care for her sick mother and her daughter in primary school, and could not go out to work, so she often felt anxious. Now she has found a job at a Chinese herbal medicine base not far from home, earning about 2,000 yuan a month, which has improved her family's living conditions and allows her to care for her mother nearby.

The villagers' words of gratitude deeply moved Xie Bingmei. "I feel I didn't come back for nothing, I didn't waste my youth, and I didn't let down my original aspiration and mission."