No apartments, small houses in russian style, maybe 60-100 feet apart, with fields outside.

Such small villages usually had some small factory/farm, and young people (later than in cities though, like 10-12), would hop on train to bigger city for school, younger education was done by like 1 teacher, with generic education, like writing/reading/literature/math. (But our education structure is also very different, that’s basically all kids learn at first). Bigger villages have/had bigger schools, with more differentiated teachers and full education available, or at least generic one

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujian_tulou

apartment style housing is in no way contradictory with rural living or farming. The Hakka people have been using packed earth techniques to construct ecologically sustainable communal housing divided into what could be considered apartments.