BEIJING -- Ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year of 2015, Liang Yuming prepared lunch at his home for a special guest -- President Xi Jinping.

"I served him rural home cuisine. We had pickled vegetables, fried cakes, chicken, mutton, pumpkin... He ate half a bowl of pickled vegetables. He loved it," said Liang, villager of Liangjiahe in Shaanxi province, Northwest China.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, returned to this small village on the Loess Plateau on Feb 13, 2015 during an inspection tour in Shaanxi to extend Spring Festival greetings to locals. For nine years in a row since 2013, he has made it a tradition to visit ordinary people ahead of the most important holiday on the Chinese calendar.

Xi lived in Liangjiahe starting from 1969, just one among tens of millions of urban educated youths who were sent to live and work in the countryside.

During the seven years he lived there, pickled vegetables were a staple of most meals. He led a life as humble as the food on his plate.