Chinese Whispers: Li Ziqi and the phenomenon of the rural influencer

<div>In the last episode, I discussed Chinese rural lives with Professor Scott Rozelle. One point he made which particularly stuck with me was the dying out of farming as an occuption – he'd said that most rural people under the age of 35 have never farmed a day in their lives.<br><br>So that got me thinking, what do they do instead? In this episode I’ll be looking at one, very high profile, alternative – vlogging. I’ve noticed through my hours of scrolling through Chinese social media that there is a huge genre of rural, pastoral content. <br><br>This is an interesting phenomenon both for what it says about the rural population today, as well as what it reveals about the – often – urban viewers on the other end. So today I’m joined by Yi-Ling Liu, a writer on Chinese society who has had bylines in the New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine and WIRED. She’s looked in detail at the phenomenon of the rural influencer.<br><br>On the episode, we talk about a few of our favourite rural influencers. You can watch Li Ziqi's videos on YouTube <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@cnliziqi%20">here</a> and 王大姐来了 (the middle aged rappers I mention) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@WangDaJie727">here</a>.</div> <hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>