Liang Village sits on the edge of the North China Plain, about 650 miles south of Beijing. The area was settled by migrants who came in waves throughout Chinese history, attracted by the fertile soil in what was traditionally one of the country’s breadbaskets. But its economic promise faded a long time ago. The brickworks shut in 2004; the elementary school, which also closed, is rented out to pig farmers, and the doctored sign over the door—“The Liang Village Pigpen Imparts Knowledge and Educates the People”—reads like a mocking commentary on the village’s decline. Much of the local economic activity is concentrated in the dredging vessels on the Tuan River that mine sand for construction. In every way, this place is nothing special, “unknown within China, just one among countless villages like it.”