What do we westerners know of China? Most of us know very little about it in spite of its long history, its vast population and its economic power. Above - that is a young woman called Qingyunji Xiaoxue. She always introduces herself as Xiaoxue which is, I believe, a fairly popular female name in China. It means "light snow".
She is a YouTuber but her videos are not about food or fashion or make-up. Instead, Xiaoxue takes us to remote and interesting locations in rural China - especially in the south western province of Guizhou. There, amid the mountains, the trees and the birds of the air, it is as if communism never happened, the modern economic revolution never took place and President Xi Jinping was never born.
This is how Xiaoxue introduces her channel:- "Hello everyone, this is Qingyunji Xiaoxue's official YouTube channel. This is a channel dedicated to sharing China's unique mountains and rivers. We show China's green mountains and clear waters, humanities and customs. We hope to show you China's traditional customs~ If you like our channel, please subscribe! Thank you very much!"
But what she doesn't tell you is that she and her cameraman take viewers to some truly incredible places of human habitation, work or worship - in caves, remote valleys or mountain tops. Many of the paths she treads are quite hair-raising.
The videos are all narrated in Mandarin but you can press the subtitles button to get a rough idea of what is being said. Along the way, Xiaoxue meets many rural people - most of them quite elderly. She communicates with them respectfully - often calling them "uncle" or "aunt".
Here are two example videos....
High on a limestone pinnacle in Guizhou:-
A cliff village in Sichuan:-
If you are reading this Xiaoxue, I just want to say thank you for your amazing videos and please keep up the good work!
Unbelieveable, that vertical path up the mountain.
ReplyDeleteI agree that some of the walks she takes are unbelievable.
DeleteWow! Thank you for telling us about this and linking to it. I'm going to subscribe right away (we watch Youtube more than regular TV) because it looks wonderful!
ReplyDeleteI am glad that her trips have grabbed you as they have grabbed me Jennifer.
DeleteAmazing - I have definitely subscribed to her channel.
ReplyDeleteRather her than me on several of her expeditions.
DeleteJeez . . . and I bitch if I have to climb a flight of stairs!
ReplyDeleteD, the man with whom I live, is Chinese-born and tbh still really Chinese though he has acquired Australian citizenship which meant losing his Chinese citizenship (that's China's rule).
ReplyDeleteWe both like to watch travel videos made by a pair of young men who live in Xi'an. The conceit is that they start on the rooftop of (I presume) their apartment building, one of them (blindfolded) throws a dart at a map of China, pinned on cardboard on an easel. Whichever province the dart lands on they then put up a map of that province and repeat the process for a more specific location. Their slogan is: “扎到哪里，就去哪里! that is, "Shoot [the dart] there, then go there!" (Rough translation. You could also say "just go there" or "straight away go there.") Then on the cardboard behind are a number of possible amounts of money for the travel budget which are selected by a final blindfold dart shoot. And then as in the slogan, they just go - straight away! (They always tell you the time and date they start, it's part of their "reality" approach, even if the cynic in me wonders if it can really be so spontaneous.)
As they go they keep track of how much they spend against their budget - the first expense is usually getting on the bus. They film it all themselves, including with a drone that one operates. They are warmhearted and youthfully energetic. It's very skilfully done. There are lots of running gags (eg they always notice dogs they meet) which structure the entertainment rather like the format of a game show.
I'm going to such length to describe them because the videos are probably not accessible to you as they are in "Mandarin" and not susceptible to translated captions, I think because the Chinese captions are already integrated into the picture rather than a "caption" in the Youtube sense. My Chinese is pretty rusty these days - I can follow maybe a quarter and guess another quarter from context, so I need to rely on running explication and occasional translation from D. But a sample (they are also on a Chinese platform "bili bili") is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMUu90yR_2A
(to the frozen north - quite touching interaction with the family they meet, helping the kid do his maths homework); another (they end up at duck farm and there is a slightly grim finale as a batch of ducks are sent off in crates for slaughter) is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vakxJYe3If0&list=PL60zq_k7UlziC6wd7oNOOtB9r1pqlc7FU .
The emphasis is more on ordinary people they meet at the randomly chosen and often quite remote destinations rather than high-profile tourist/picturesque things, so a bit different to Xiaoxue's videos.
There are so many people in the world and there is so much content on the internet. What I really want to say (not that I expect it would really be news to you) is that we read so much negative stuff about China in the mainstream media. From my own quite limited though more than the average westerner's time spent there, it is a very partial picture. If you relied on the mainstream press it would be easy to forget that China is an enormous country filled (as surely everywhere is) with ordinary people getting on with their lives.
That is truly amazing!
ReplyDeleteThe lady who very competently massages my neck and shoulder about once a week is from China, and we communicate in a mix of German and English. She tells me of her childhood and youth in the mountains, where she and her family often went on walks and hikes, sometimes to gather what was growing wild each season. She says she misses the clean air and special light there.
I'm afraid I've become so cynical because of AI, I wonder about such walkways and precariously perched homes. I think I once innocently posted something quite amazing that was AI.
ReplyDeleteshe seems quite intrepid.... i should try and get up and down that scaffolding staircase on one leg and see how far i get!! thanks for the vicarious travelog!
ReplyDeleteThere is peace and beauty in all corners of the world.
ReplyDeleteNope. Not watching, my knees are twitching.
ReplyDeleteThat landscape! Holy cow. Unbelievable. What a beautiful place.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how much freedom she has to say what she wants to say on YouTube. I suppose as long as she doesn't stray into problematic subjects (politics!) no one would object. She's certainly giving China's tourism industry a lift.
Oh, I would never be able to climb to those dangerous places! I had a wonderful trip to China when my middle son married my lovely DIL there. They toured us all around for about 12 days - we got to see Nanjing (where she is from), Shanghai, Beijing, and Xian. It was a wonderful mix of very, very, very old and very, very modern. I'm wearing my "I climbed the Great Wall" t-shirt today to my Zumba exercise class! Climbing up and down the Great Wall was difficult but we got to slide down on a coaster when we were done. :)
ReplyDeleteI have seen the second video many times, but each time I wonder about the little children and the elderly infirm. Than k you for bringing these videos to our attention.
ReplyDeleteOne false move on those stairs in the second video and........
ReplyDeleteShe and her cameraman are very brave people. But why is a village up there in the first place and how do they get food up there I wonder.
ReplyDeleteI haven’t got much to say but I’m still reading x
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