A traditional worship ceremony is held during the Spring Festival in Xiaozhuxi village in Songyang. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Beautiful scenery aside, Shen is keen for tourists to Xikeng to experience local culture, too. He is building a market space for farmers to sell locally grown food and helps organize activities with locals such as making local cuisine and putting on a dragon dance during Spring Festival.

"Xikeng has not put on a dragon dance for 17 years," Shen says. "It's clear that the village is recapturing its lost vitality."

Shen has also become keenly aware of the changes that are underway. He himself is learning from the villagers how to live a rural life, and he is also picking up traditional house building skills.

One example of local customs is that from March to April all local workers in his hotel stop work, returning home to pick tea leaves.

"These villages will not disappear," Shen says. "It's just that the line between city and country is increasingly obscure. Countryside is just a concept of distance compared with cities."

With more and more people like Shen from big cities flowing into Songyang to help it grow, the question arises of whom rural development is meant to serve.