An aerial view of Taotou village in Hairun sub-district, Taizhou's Sanmen city. [Photo/taizhou.com.cn]

Taotou village in Hairun subdistrict, Taizhou's Sanmen city, exemplifies the saying that out of the depths of misfortune comes bliss. 

Typhoons can cause damage to coastal cities, but sometimes good luck follows disaster.

In August 1997, Sanmen was hit by a typhoon which is believed to have been the strongest in 220 years.

Taotou village was driven to an impasse after the typhoon, as the salinity of more than 260 hectares of fields in the village increased by over 10 percent after being immersed in seawater for more than 40 days. This meant that no crops could be grown on the land for at least three years.

As a result, local villagers were forced to get involved in aquaculture under the leadership of Wang Shuming, the village's deputy Party chief.

In the first year after the typhoon, the output of the aquaculture sector in Taotou exceeded 6 million yuan ($869,565.2), more than 10 times the amount local farmers used to earn from crop farming.

In 2012, the output value had jumped to 100 million yuan, with per capita income among the villagers jumping to $10,000.

In recent years, the village has also rented more than 2,000 hectares of land in Malaysia to farm blue crabs with an estimated output value of 100 million yuan, according to the village's Party chief Lin Houyi.

As one of the largest villages of the She minority, Taotou is home to 185 people in 48 households.

A dazzling array of tourism facilities featuring the She minority culture have been erected in the village, transforming it into a new hit rural tourism destination for nearby visitors.