A UNIQUE presentation style which offers viewers a glimpse into the serene country life of rural China is what made videos of Li Ziqi an instant hit on social media. Known as one of the most popular lifestyle vloggers in the world, with 20.77 million followers on Chinese social media platform Sina Weibo and 7.43 million subscribers on YouTube, Li captivates her audiences with her idyllic, homemade footage.

In her videos, the Internet celebrity is often seen harvesting fresh fruits and vegetables that she grows in her own fields. She then makes delicious sweet and savory dishes using the most traditional methods. You won’t see modern equipment like mixers, grinders or even an oven. These videos shot in the beautiful countryside of China’s Sichuan Province explore an authentic backcountry way of life.

After cooking only what is required for Li and her grandmother, she preserves the rest of the fruits and vegetables as jams or pickles and stores them in huge glass jars. Her videos capture the changes in seasons and how the beautiful hamlet where they reside changes throughout the year.

She mainly focuses on traditional modes of cooking and preserving food items, which is a major part of Chinese cuisine. Li, an ardent lover of all the traditional art forms of China, finds time to learn other beautiful art forms as well.

In one video, she makes the “Scholar’s Four Jewels” — paper, ink, an ink brush and an ink stone. Everything is made DIY — from cutting goat and rabbit fur for the brush hairs to chopping small trees to make paper. The whole process took her a year and a half. In another video, she makes two sofas and a coffee table entirely out of bamboo. The project was inspired by a sofa her grandfather made.

Li believes that her videos can help millions of people who struggle to cope with the pressures of their modern careers to relax and unwind. One could enjoy the impeccable charm of the serene countryside where people, donning traditional attire, indulge in farming or other manual jobs that brings them closer to nature. Besides these, the viewers can also watch how Li prepares mouthwatering traditional dishes.

Like every youngster who aspires for a better life, Li too had migrated to the city. She worked at a hotel bar as an in-house DJ for a few years before returning to her roots. It was her grandfather’s sudden demise which prompted Li to come back to her beautiful hometown of Mianyang in Sichuan Province, where she still lives today with her grandmother.

Li says that in her videos, she mostly portrays the traditional life that she enjoyed in the village as a child. Besides the food, clothes were also locally produced.

Though she enjoys the admiration of millions of people, she has her critics as well. Her detractors question the one-woman band premise, but Li brushes it off as sour grapes. Two years ago, she uploaded a behind-the-scenes video showing the inner workings of her video-making. As late as May 2017, Li edited her videos using a regular smartphone. Some videos would take her months to shoot.

Nowadays, she has help from a videographer and assistant, but she still directs all her videos. “I’ve always been the director of my videos,” Li says. “From what to film and how to film to how each shot is framed. Often, my videographer only knows what he’s filming on the day of the shoot.”

Li gave a very modest answer in an interview with the South China Morning Post when it was suggested that her success was inspiring. “What I do is just record my life, or, put it this way: the life I want to live,” Li said.

According to YouTube channel analytics tool Noxinfluencer, Li earns an estimated US$1 million a year from uploading videos on the platform, realizing the great success and immense commercial value that can come from making videos.

Xu Lixia, one Chinese video blogger who also uploaded videos of cooking Chinese food in a village on YouTube, told the Global Times that Li’s videos are perfect in terms of filming and cooking. “Her content is so diverse and really fascinating. She is living a life everyone dreams of,” said Xu. (SD-Agencies)