How mobile Internet is transforming rural life

Tencent also partnered with handset vendor ZTE Corporation to provide 150 smartphones to villagers, and set up training classes to teach them how to use them.

Within a year, said Tongguan Party secretary Wu Zhengang, the devices have changed many people's lives and how the village is run.

"We set up a group account on WeChat that covers all the households in the village," said secretary Wu. "We started using the platform to deal with all kinds of things, including emergencies, such as finding a lost cow, as we had recently."

The creation of the network also means that Tongguan's young people working away in big cities have been able to keep up with what's going on at home.

Wu said that on one occasion, a list of people eligible for subsistence allowances was published on the site and one young migrant worker, who previously had showed no interest in the running of the village's affairs, questioned that some of the names were not fairly chosen.

A heated online discussion quickly ensued, drawing in other migrant workers and villagers. But the problem was resolved with the input of many people.

"This mobile Internet technology has deepened the bond between the migrant workers away from home and those left behind," said Wu.

But addressing its communications issues was not enough for Tencent, said Chen.

It wanted to lure back those young people too, to improve Tongguan's fortunes even further, by making better use of both its agricultural resources and its traditions.

The company spent 15 million yuan building the 5,600-square-meter Tongguan Museum, which opened in December, where the village's Kam Grand Choir meets to perform "polyphonic" choir singing.

This type of music mimics the sounds of nature, such as the chirping of birds and buzzing of insects. Its history can be traced back 1,500 years, and has been listed by UNESCO as a world-class intangible cultural heritage.

"Tongguan is one of the birthplaces of Kam Grand Choir, and the Internet-enabled museum acts like a school to connect the local culture with the outside world," said Ma Qijian, an Internet researcher at Peking University.

The new museum actually consists of 19 wooden structures, some of which can serve as tourist accommodation.

It is already being considered one of the foremost venues, for not only the music, but the music's heritage, and is attracting many visitors.