For villages that have struck it lucky, limits still exist. Hu Yinan reports from Zhejiang.

Fu Yongchang struggles to recall the last time he plowed his field or planted crops. All the ageing farmer remembers of those days is his old, rickety wooden house and the smell of the pigs, ducks and chickens he shared it with.

It has been more than two decades since the 65-year-old swapped tilling for teaching by taking a job at a school in his native Tengtou village, Zhejiang province.