Memory lane

Watching the TV show took Zhang Xiuli, the university's first volunteer teacher in Ningxia, back to 1999.

That was when she spent a year teaching math and physics to the 13 seniors at Sanhe Middle School in Ningxia's Xiji county. She had graduated from Xiamen University with a bachelor's in biology and distinction as the top student in the major.

When she returned to Xiamen, she undertook graduate study and has worked at the university ever since.

The 46-year-old has an old group picture in which she looks even younger than her Ningxia students.

When her daughter questioned the appearance of Minning Town's main character, a 20-something grassroots official who looked much older than his years due to his rough, suntanned skin, Zhang simply replied that the area's tough living conditions were reflected in the faces and attitudes of the local people.

The yellow dust that permeated the air in the TV drama reminded her of the local people with their strong accents and the days when sand filled her hair.

"It was all dirt roads; our bus didn't have full glass windows, so when we got off we were covered in sand," she said, recalling the three-hour trip from the downtown to the school.

To welcome her, the school principal, who spoke in heavily accented Mandarin that was difficult to understand, took her to the town's only restaurant for a dish of stewed chicken and potatoes as a treat.

"I later realized it was a luxury," Zhang said, adding that most days people only ate potato noodles.

The county is located in the Xihaigu region, which was once so badly plagued by severe drought and a poor environment that the UN dubbed it the "least fit place for human settlement in the world" in the 1970s.

Zhang's shampoo was no use at all as there was only enough water to drink and people had to line up to collect it in iron buckets.

"It took a long time for the water to become clear after the sand settled. I had to add orange-flavored powder to stop it from tasting so bitter," she recalled.

The hardness depicted in the TV drama has impressed audiences.

For example, a family was shown as having just one pair of pants that were only worn when someone left the house; potatoes were the only food; a seriously ill villager was shown longing for vegetables; and even after the mushroom industry was introduced to help boost incomes, local people had no idea how to cook the fungi they grew.