Hitting the bull's-eye

Songs. Livestreams. Ethnic Miao embroidery. The village where President Xi Jinping's targeted poverty alleviation strategy was first articulated in 2013 serves as a microcosm for the country, as China seeks to eradicate extreme poverty by year-end.

Jiao Jiao cups her hands around her mouth and inhales a deep gulp of crisp morning air, before blasting a high-pitched bolt of undulating and rhythmic notes into the surrounding mountain scenery.

Dressed head-to-foot in traditional ethnic Miao clothing, all intricately hand-stitched, colorful and bursting with birds and bright flowers, Jiao is one of many young people who have returned to the village of Shibadong in the high mountains of Hunan province to grasp new opportunities.

Prior to 2013, Shibadong village was an isolated backwater accessed only by dirt track and with land too steep to farm anything of value on, and barely enough crops to sustain the locals let alone turn a buck.

But today all that has changed. The village, with its refurbished traditional wooden buildings, new roads and, most importantly, new and thriving local industries, has become a model for other less well-off places in China to follow.

"Songs play an important role in Miao culture, so I decided to leave home and study performing arts at university in the city," Jiao says. "But today, the village has been rejuvenated, and so I've come back to be with my family and start a business."

And what type of idyllic, rural business has she come back to? Well, it's not what you'd expect. Jiao, a humble and charismatic 24-year-old, has found fame online in China for her livestreams promoting the sales of yellow peaches grown in Shibadong.

I met Jiao as part of a tour of rural villages across the country that have thrown off the shackles of poverty and turned their fortunes around in recent years.

In 2013, President Xi Jinping visited Shibadong and met with the local people. It is there that the concept of targeted poverty alleviation was first raised, with Xi stressing that, for each individual circumstance of poverty, there must be a unique and individual solution.