Chinese rural vlogger in social media limelight

Whether sleeping on a brick bed, feeding leftovers to dogs and chickens, or rustling up a mishmash for himself on a fire stove, fast-paced clips of "Student Zhang" have racked up 2 million likes on Douyin, a popular short-video app in China.

Vlogger Zhang Kai, or "Student Zhang," has stirred up a nostalgic trend with his clips that mostly portray a non-filtered rural life filmed through the lens of Yingkou City of Liaoning Province in northeastern China.

Over two months, the 36-year-old posted over 45 videos using a decades-old German song "Aloha Heja He" as background music, receiving 50 million likes and attracting 16 million subscribers.

Zhang is the latest vlogger to start from a one-man operation to become an online sensation. Content creators or influencers like Zhang have cropped up in Chinese social media apps such as Douyin and Kuaishou. Though Zhang is only starting to get more attention, many have used a solid fan base to win sponsorship deals and develop their hobby into a lucrative business.

IN HIS LENS, REVIVING RURAL LIFE

Zhang says he is self-made and has not received professional training to make catchy videos. His video setup is no more than a smartphone and some tapes.

The man, who wears an old cotton-padded jacket with a rough and reddened face, was once a truck driver and a garage owner.

After several business failures, he chose to go back to his hometown Songshu Village in July 2020. He describes the choice as a break from city life and reconciliation for his perennial insomnia problem.

"A lot of the details in my videos come from my childhood memories, not exactly from the countryside now," he said.

Zhang makes the videos in an old house that belonged to his grandfather. The brick house is set aside from rows of modern houses in the village. Most of the villagers now live in houses plated with white glazed tiles on the facades and have running water and underfloor heating.

Inside Zhang's house, furniture and an old DVD player remind people of life in the 1980s or 1990s.

Some scenes that may be unfamiliar for urbanites, such as washing clothes in the river, cutting firewood in the mountains and digging cellars, are still common for some elderly people in this village, Zhang said.

The vlogger said he would often invite his friends in the village to appear in the videos. These 30-something men and women could be "drummers" as they beat a bucket with wooden sticks, or be "guitarists" as they pretended to play the cardboard box guitars, showing plenty of joie de vivre in a minimalist lifestyle.

His subscribers say the rural life portrayed in Zhang's videos used to be the reality that many lived through 20 or 30 years ago, creating an "emotional impact." Student Zhang projects not a day in the life, but a life in the past, one comment on Douyin said.

Wang Le, a 45-year-old resident in Dalian City, is a fan of short videos about rural life. He said that everything in Student Zhang's short videos -- the frozen vegetable fields in the yard, the piles of straw in the crop fields, and the pine forests on the distant mountains -- remind him of the countryside where he grew up. "In a few years I will retire; I would like to return to the countryside to spend my later years," Wang said.

LIMELIGHT SHINES ON THE COUNTRYSIDE

Zhang did not expect his newfound fame would come so soon. Now, his old house has become a "landmark" and many are willing to travel there to see him in person.

Such a viral phenomenon reminds many of Li Ziqi, who shared an idyllic life in the mountain of the southwestern Sichuan Province on different platforms at home and abroad. Now, she has over 16 million subscribers on her YouTube channel.

Data released in June by Douyin shows that videos themed on China's rural life had received 12.9 billion likes in the past year, and the total income of these content creators increased by 15 times year on year.

"With the urbanization of China's countryside and more people moving into or building cities, rural life has become a dear and cherished memory for many Chinese," said Xie Taiping, a professor with the Southwest University of Political Science and Law.

According to China's seventh national census conducted last year, the population of permanent residents in China's urban areas had reached about 902 million by 2020, with an urbanization rate of permanent residents of 63.89 percent.

The 48th "Statistical Report on China's Internet Development Status" shows that by June 2021, the number of Internet users in China had exceeded 1 billion, of whom 297 million were from rural areas.

Under the spotlight, Zhang is uncertain but full of expectations about his future. "The countryside is my roots. I hope to use my expertise to help my hometown attract more attention and get more lively," said Zhang.