China’s efforts to eradicate poverty have been heroic and well-documented. The country has lifted more than 800 million people out of poverty since the 1970s, and served as a major contributor to the global achievement of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. On a recent visit to the village of Pei Zhai, in central China’s Henan Province, I witnessed the achievements made by one particular community on the road to modernization – and the ways in which, despite the rapid pace of change, they are keeping their village traditions alive.

As the high-speed train slices through the Henan countryside and deposits us safely in the city of Xinxiang, I receive a jarring reminder of just how massive the stakes are when it comes to regional development in China. With a population of around six million, this provincial city that I’d never heard of is home to more people than many European capitals – and if it were a country, Henan Province as a whole would be the twelfth most populous nation in the world. Still digesting these figures, we transfer to a bus and continue our journey to Pei Zhai, where my introduction to life in rural China begins in earnest.

The disused apparatus of an old-fashioned well stands forlornly in the center of Pei Zhai village, a symbol of harder times. Nowadays, the villagers have much more convenient access to water; but just ten years ago, the daily struggles faced by people here were some of the most fundamental imaginable. A victim of its geography, nestled in the shadow of the Taihang Mountains, Pei Zhai faced regular and acute water shortages which had crippled its development. Aerial pictures prove just how big a difference the village’s modern reservoirs and irrigation systems have made to the landscape: where previously only barren earth was visible, now the ground has been transformed into verdant acres of green crops. “Water is hugely important for the village,” explains Pei Chunliang, the Communist Party Secretary of Pei Zhai Community and a local, self-made philanthropist, who has personally invested a huge amount of money in the area. “A reliable water source has allowed us to progress.”

He’s not wrong. The water storage systems have given local people the upper hand in their battle with the elements for the first time in history, and the resulting changes have rendered Pei Zhai almost unrecognisable. The village’s original buildings have largely been demolished to make way for its new structures, so to get some context on what life here used to be like, we visit another nearby community that has not seen the same pace of development: the village of Dawangzhuang. There, an unmade road winds between the ramshackle houses, some of which stand empty and derelict. A few dogs rummage in litter, piled at the side of the road. The people still subsist almost entirely on farming. With this as its starting point, Pei Zhai’s achievements seem all the more impressive.