This photo taken in August 2024 shows Ma Liang promoting pumpkins from his hometown at a farmland in Xiji County, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. (Xinhua)
Sharply dressed, Ma Liang stood on a podium in the farmland, and gave a speech in both English and a local county dialect in promoting local specialties of the area where he grew up, namely Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in northwest China.
"I have a strong sense of mission to re-portray my home region with an international language and unique expressions so that more netizens can have a different interpretation of Ningxia," Ma said, adding that this is the original intention of his choice to return to his home region to create short videos.
Majoring in English, Ma graduated from Xi'an International Studies University in 2009. He did a variety of jobs, engaged in cultural exchanges, and visited more than 10 countries.
In 2022, he decided to go back to his hometown, Xiji County, to start a new business with his friend Ma Haodong. The latter used to be a documentary film director.
"I once ran away from this mountainous area, but now I've come back to gain a new understanding and knowledge of my hometown," he said. "The loess land here offers us a big stage on which to start our own businesses."
To help create suitable videos showcasing his hometown online, Ma has read a lot of novels, poems, essays and other literary works about this area -- in his search for inspiration. He has posted online videos promoting apples, pumpkins and potatoes. It took him four months to create the video promoting pumpkins.
The hard work paid off with the video promoting pumpkins drawing over 17 million views on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok. Thanks to the promotion efforts of this video, 60,000 kg of pumpkins from Xiji County were sold in just two weeks.
The success of Ma and his team has highlighted the booming e-commerce industry found in rural areas across China. In recent years, China has advanced the development of e-commerce in its rural areas, supporting 1,489 counties in building nearly 3,000 county-level e-commerce public service centers and logistics distribution centers, as well as over 158,000 village-level e-commerce service sites.
As a result, products can be delivered speedily from cities to villages and vice versa. E-commerce, as an important engine for promoting the development of rural industries, has become a significant part of China's rural revitalization quest.
Another example worth noting is a video featuring Peng Bo, which introduces a local specialty in another part of China. Rice is the focus of this video, in which Peng speaks both English and a local dialect, and which went viral. To date, more than 200,000 kg of this rice from Wanjin Village, Shenyang, northeast China's Liaoning Province, have been sold.
"Through our videos, people have seen the beautiful rural scenery in Yuhong and learned about its simple and honest folkway, as well as our agricultural products," said Peng, deputy head of the culture and tourism bureau of Yuhong District, Shenyang.
"I want to build up the industry, push forward economic development and bring real benefits to local people here," she said.