China News Service, Wenzhou, November 12 (Huang Yanjun, Qian Fengfeng) Walking into the showroom of the "Kengli Keng Foreign Bowl Suomian" store in Pingyangkeng Town, Ruian City, Zhejiang Province, a fresh and elegant "Seven Joys of Life" suomian gift box attracted people's attention.
"Suomian noodles are more tender and smooth than ordinary noodles. In the past, what was sold was raw materials and taste." Fu Xiaofen, CEO of Pingyangkeng Town Village, said, "Now we also inject emotional value into it, so that young people can have feelings and stories when giving gifts."
From a bowl of suede noodles and a piece of embossed flowers to traditional techniques such as wooden movable type and blue valerian, with the help of Fu Xiaofen, Pingyangkeng Town is linking the resources scattered in various villages into a "shared wealth chain."
Pingyangkeng Town is surrounded by mountains and rivers and has a long history. It has 8 villages under its jurisdiction and a registered population of about 18,000. However, it has long faced the pain point of "scattered resources and uneven development among villages" - some villages have wood movable type printing and blue valerian skills, but they are struggling to find a way to realize them; some villages have been making noodles for more than 300 years, but they are trapped in problems such as narrow sales channels and insufficient innovation.
Fu Xiaofen is a native of Pingyangkeng and has sufficient understanding and deep love for her hometown. In January 2025, she was officially hired as Rural CEO, and began to explore a path to shared wealth through unified operations, unified brands, and unified markets.
"It is difficult for a single village to grow bigger if it works alone. Only by pooling the resources of the eight villages, unifying the brand and unifying the market can we form a synergy." Fu Xiaofen said, "Our goal is very clear, which is to benefit the village collective and the villagers together."
After conducting in-depth rural research, Fu Xiaofen found that there are many cultural resources and idle assets scattered in various villages that need to be activated.
After that, she and her team sorted out 6 venues, including the idle exhibition hall of the Rural Commercial Bank and the Nanshan Village Laosuo Noodle Market, and linked cultural and tourism resources such as the Wooden Type, Feiyunjiang Greenway, and Zouma Building to build a joint-stock business model of "market entities + strong village companies + farmers' cooperatives". The income is distributed according to shares, dividends are distributed according to orders, and shares are donated to the village collective.
In 2025, the transformed and upgraded idle assets successfully attracted companies to set up shop, creating employment for nearly 40 villagers. It has now helped eight villages increase their collective income by more than 1.9 million yuan. On this basis, supporting facilities such as agricultural facilities and housing for the flower project are also being accelerated, and the way for the village collective income to increase is getting wider and wider.
Nanshan Suomian, which was once "far away in the mountains and unknown to anyone", is now out of the circle due to modern operations.
Registering the collective trademark "Village Has Nanshan", building a practice station for young people entering rural areas, planning a cable surface design competition... the effect of a set of brand building "combination boxing" is immediate. In recent years, the sales of Nanshan Suomian noodles in Pingyangkeng Town have increased by nearly 40%, and the average annual income of more than a dozen cooperative farmers has increased by 10,000 to 20,000 yuan.
While branding is opening up the market, standardization on the production side is also following up.
In June this year, the Nanshan Cable Noodles standardized production workshop began construction. "The aroma of wine is also afraid of the deep alleys." Fu Xiaofen said, "Nanshan Suomian has a history of more than 300 years, but in the past there was no unified label and no quality control. Customers could not find farmers if they wanted to buy. Now that there are trademarks, packaging, and standards, only the old craftsmanship can really go out."
This set of "culture + emotion + design" has been replicated throughout Pingyangkeng Town: the specialty maltose focuses on the "nostalgic and sweet memory of childhood style", the local delicacy lard residue focuses on the "home-cooked fireworks and heart-warming style", and the mountain bamboo shoots focus on the "fresh oxygen and natural style of the mountains and wild fields", realizing "one village, one product, one product, one intention".
Using specialty products as a link, Pingyangkeng Town has opened up cultural tourism experience links and online sales channels.
Fu Xiaofen introduced that the local area has organized rural-themed events such as the "Nanshan Cable Noodles Triathlon Challenge", attracting more than 100 villagers and representatives of new social classes to participate, vividly demonstrating the charm of traditional crafts in fun interactions.
On the online front, the "Fun Pingyangkeng" mini program and the "Pingyangkeng Selection Shop" WeChat store have been launched locally, forming a new retail system of "offline experience + online transactions".
"By stringing together various resources, we have formed a complete route. We hope that when tourists come to Pingyangkeng Town, they can experience wooden movable type printing and rope noodle making, and turn 'take a look and leave' into 'stay and play for a long time', and they can buy products online after leaving." Fu Xiaofen said.
After more than a year of operation by Rural CEO, the changes in Pingyangkeng are not only reflected in the books, but also written in the spirit of the village.
On the one hand, the vitality of cultural inheritance has been significantly enhanced. Nanshan cable noodles, wooden movable type, etc. have been widely disseminated through study, lectures, and competitions, and the inheritance group has continued to expand. On the other hand, with the improvement of rural governance and coordinated development, villagers have changed from "spectators" to "protagonists", and the town's brand influence continues to expand.
"The most lacking thing now is people. We sincerely invite like-minded young people to take root in our hometown." Fu Xiaofen said frankly that the production workshop needs to recruit operational employees, the operation needs to recruit young people who understand e-commerce and the market, and the design side needs to continue to connect with university teams. "Come back next year, everyone will see a Pingyangkeng with more concentrated industries and a more livable environment."
