Old photos of a man getting his long ponytail cut and a portrait of Sun Yat-sen in Yang Yuefu's carpentry shop.

Yang was born and grew up in Wuzhen, in a family of six children. Poverty forced him to end his education when he graduated from primary school at age 14.

He soon got a job as a temporary worker at the largest paper mill in the area. His job was to dry straws in the sunshine.

The mill was located across the river, near Yang's current shop.

He clearly remembers a big fire at that time.

The straw stack was as high as a two-story building and as wide as three rooms. Once, the toilet-paper mill beside the paper mill caught fire and the flame spread to the straw stack.

Yang was the first to run across the river to call the police. All of the city's fire-fighting equipment was transported here.

"The fire burned for three days and nights. The river was only 10 meters wide, but luckily the houses across the banks weren't touched because of timely firefighting."

At 16, Yang started learning carpentry, and worked at a State-owned factory later. By 1999 he was laid off, but the development of tourism in Xizha presented another job opportunity.