By Zhou Shanshan
China, a nation of immense scale with its vast population, sprawling geography, and millennia-old civilization, defies simplistic categorization. Two recent viral stories involving internet influencers – one international and one domestic – provide nuanced insights into this ancient yet dynamically evolving society.
The first involves American influencer IShowSpeed, whose global livestreaming adventures have been hailed as a “digital-age Marco Polo journey.”
Through his unvarnished lens, international audiences gained real-time glimpses of a China where urban safety rendered his security details nearly redundant, futuristic food-delivery drones coexisted with awe-inspiring displays of Chinese Kung Fu and Sichuan opera’s “face-changing” artistry.
His spontaneous engagements – dancing with square-dancing aunties, bargaining at night markets, and receiving good-humored reminders about public etiquette in English – unveiled a society that seamlessly blends approachability, vibrant energy, and civic order.
The statistics paint a striking portrait: over 100 million views, with comment sections flooded by international netizens requesting travel itineraries and organizing fan communities dedicated to experiencing China firsthand.
This digital phenomenon has transcended virtual boundaries. From American-Chinese families reuniting in Shanghai after reconnecting online, to foreign influencers like the U.S.-based “Baobao Xiong” transforming into voluntary ambassadors for China, even an Australian who brought skeptical neighbors to personally verify the country’s realities – the “China Travel” wave has fueled more and more foreign visitors to explore, understand, and embrace the nation. This momentum coincides with China’s progressively relaxed visa-free transit policies.
What crystallizes is a country defying outdated stereotypes and cultural misconceptions, its authentic allure now resonating globally.
Another narrative unfolds in Yimeng, east China’s Shandong province, where a rural poetess has captivated global audiences by crafting verses amid farm work.
Known online as “Yimeng Sis,” she transforms spring into “nature’s alarm clock rousing plows” and winter snow into “celestial frost sugar,” blending agrarian cycles with lyrical introspection. Her viral declaration – “Life is poetry; existence our eternal anthem” – epitomizes the philosophical depth resonating from China’s countryside.
Accusations of AI-generated content or professional team backing expose a persistent cognitive gap: many still struggle to reconcile poetic expression with their preconceived notions of rural life. The root cause lies in the profound and drastic transformation of China, especially the great changes taking place in its rural areas.
Yet Yimeng Sis represents just one blossom in China’s cultural renaissance. Young content creator Li Ziqi fuses traditional craftsmanship with pastoral aesthetics, while ethnic embroiderers transform heritage patterns into metaverse NFTs. These grassroots narratives sprout from profound transformations—successful poverty alleviation and rural vitalization programs cultivating not just fertile fields, but confident farmers with enriched spiritual worlds.
The parallel success of these disparate stories—an American demystifying China through livestream and a farmer poet articulating rural changes—reveals fundamental truths. Modern China, with its multilayered realities and groundbreaking socioeconomic experiments, embodies a living legend. Its authentic representation, whether through foreign lenses or domestic voices, becomes the ultimate traffic magnet.
When observed without filters—comprehensively and objectively—China inevitably emerges as credible, endearing, and admirable.
American influencer IShowSpeed learns Chinese Kung Fu in Shaolin Temple in central China’s Henan province. (Photo is a screenshot of a video clip)
Tourists pose for a picture in a scenic area in Shanghai, April 7, 2025. (Photo by Wang Gang/People’s Daily Online)
Yimeng Erjie, an online influencer from east China’s Shandong province, shoots a video. (Photo from the Dazhong app)
