Yea that rice mill machine is similar to what I remember. Our village didn't have one so some guy would show up in harvest season to do it for every house in the village.

I can tell by the houses in your wife's village that their area was likely wealthier than ours growing up. Our houses looked more like this: https://imgur.com/a/Pc9LuKF

When I was a kid, it felt like there were only 2 or 3 villages total in my area since our parents didn't allow us to go too far. As a visiting adult, I found out that there were hundreds of similar villages in the region. Most of these villages are generally empty nowadays as people moved to cities. However, I heard from locals that some younger people are beginning to return to villages and raise their kids there.

Oh, I assumed you meant a powered machine.

I believe it's pretty quiet here too outside of CNY, although there is at least one active school nearby. Nice to hear some younger people are returning. It must be nice for kids to grow up in this kind of environment.