Technology gives a new generation the ability to be creative, He Qi reports in Shanghai.

The team of Ychina, a new media company set up by Raz Galor from Israel (second from left, front row) and friends, which highlights expat life in China.. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

People, especially those of Generation Z, are used to acquiring information through smartphones, resulting in a significant increase in video sharing and creativity alongside the rapid development of internet and its ever-growing number of users.

According to a report by the China Internet Network Information Center, the number of people interacting with online videos in China reached 927 million by the end of 2020, accounting for 93.7 percent of the country's total internet users.

Meanwhile, the earnings report of Chinese video streaming platform Bilibili pointed out that it had 2.7 million monthly active content creators and received more than 10 million monthly video submissions as of the third quarter in 2021. Its number of monthly active users reached 267 million.

There has been a huge leap compared to the figures of the previous years－the number of monthly active content creators was only approximately 570,000 as of the fourth quarter of 2018 and only 234,000 in the same period of 2017.

Those video clips, which allow viewers to share comments and interact with the content creators, not only attract millions of fans but also play an important role in publicity, especially in the most common aspects of people's daily lives.

Some of the 88 dishes of the Manchu-Han banquet featured in Cat's Kitchen. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Visual feast

When Jiang Xuan, 41, also known as Jiang Laodao online, started to create food videos in 2013, the short-video platform Douyin had not been established and Bilibili was barely known. The short-video streaming and sharing sector was in its infancy.

The major video-sharing platform was Tudou, where Jiang launched the first episode of Cat's Kitchen, a series of food video clips specializing in Chinese cuisine and traditional delicacies, which had more than 54 million subscribers across all platforms by the end of last year.

"Everyone is the director of their life" was the slogan of Tudou, as it aimed to stimulate the creative enthusiasm of individuals and startups, says Jiang. "Cat's Kitchen has been established to deliver our thoughts about food to the younger generation."

It was not until 2015 that he began to promote videos of Cat's Kitchen on Bilibili, because Jiang used to regard the platform as a service provider that catered for a much younger audience that had little interest in cooking. However, once on the platform, the video series was very well received and enjoyed a boost to even greater levels of popularity.

"I started to think that our positioning had been inaccurate when our videos turned out to be very popular on Bilibili," says Jiang, who initially set his target demographic as college graduates who are just starting to live independently and getting married. "However, while many college students may not have fully entered society, they have very clear preferences and attitudes toward life, and cooking is an important element of that," Jiang explains.

Steamed Chinese Cabbage in Supreme Soup, a traditional Chinese dish featured in Cat's Kitchen, a series of online food videos. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

The team was one of the top 100 Bilibili content creators in 2018. As of early November, the official account for Cat's Kitchen on the platform had uploaded 459 video episodes, and currently boasts over 6.29 million followers.

Since 2015, Jiang has also posted videos on YouTube. "Although we don't think YouTube will bring us many business prospects, we are very keen for people in other countries to see our content and what we are trying to express and convey," Jiang explains.

He adds that he receives emails from many other users in other countries to interact with him about the dishes featured. Some even invited him to visit in person and cook with them after the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of that, he says, he feels "a sense of presence among many foreign friends when sharing videos on the platform".

He observes that his team "often gets strong feedback when making a very traditional and Chinese-style dish". For example, a particularly popular episode featuring traditional Chinese cuisine, called Steamed Chinese Cabbage in Supreme Soup, received "10 times the clicks compared to the average interactions with other videos "they uploaded.

Jiang says that, last year, the team made an episode of the Complete Manchu-Han Banquet, the palace feast that took place during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), of which 88 dishes from more than 100 years ago have been re-created. It is a banquet which features royal cuisine and local delicacies of both the Han and Manchu ethnic groups. The team spent over two months on the video.

More Chinese youths find short-video content to be a good outlet for their creativity, including Jiang Xuan, also known as Jiang Laodao online. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

To his delight, their effort paid dividends. The video performed impressively－it has been clicked over 56 million times on Bilibili and viewed 140,000 times on YouTube.

Jiang says that presenting ancient dishes is not easy. "When making modern dishes, there will be countless methods, but for some older cuisines, many ingredients are no longer available," he says. "Also, there might be disputes or arguments among the viewers, since we can only present them through our understanding of the available historical references."

Jiang believes that Chinese aesthetics contains many illuminating areas that can be illustrated, some of which "may get ignored, forgotten or taken for granted by us Chinese at certain times". Once they are dug out and presented, they will shine brightly. "I think it is good that such content can be mentioned and noticed again, with the help of internet influencers, such as Li Ziqi," Jiang says.

He adds that the treasure trove of Chinese cuisine is so large that no dish has been repeated in Cat's Kitchen over the past eight years. "That is the most special characteristic of Chinese food, which has also impressed the outside world."

As well as introducing archaic dishes to "inherit the history of our cuisine", which accounts one-third of Cat's Kitchen's content, Jiang also focuses on the contemporary.

"We are willing to zoom in on common dishes, such as barbecue chilled noodles, or signature snacks from Heilongjiang province, which are good representatives of contemporary Chinese cuisine that also deserve to be displayed."

Caiqian, whose real name is Wang Xinge. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Gaming culture

By introducing video games to social media platforms, 31-year-old Zhang Jun, better known as Xiaoyao Sanren online, enjoys expressing himself and spreading Chinese culture.

Now a popular content creator on Bilibili boasting 5.4 million followers, Zhang uploaded his first commentary video of the computer game, I Wanna Be the Magnanimity, in 2011 while studying in the United States. Later, he spent more than four months completing the game and released 18 related videos, which collectively received more than 180,000 clicks. He soon became popular on the platform.

"When studying overseas, I felt the cultural differences of the East and the West, which made me more interested in the news and situation in China," Zhang says, adding that he believes many aspects of our life and society in the country have been "greatly improved", while some are even "better than abroad".

He came back to China after graduation and became a full-time content creator on Bilibili specializing in video games. His overseas experiences made him more aware of introducing Chinese culture to foreign friends through gaming.

The first time he realized that gaming can convey culture was when he found a video he made about a Japanese game, which he dubbed into Chinese, being circulated among many foreigners online.

"Most of our games are dubbed into English or Japanese, including some mobile games, but several years ago, I dubbed a Japanese video game named Ace Attorney and played every character's dialogue in Chinese," he recalls, adding that the video later spread to many countries and received great attention.

"When foreign viewers saw it, they found that my dubbing made the original game more emotional and interesting, although they understand little Chinese.

"This video made me realize that we have a lot of great content, but we haven't taken it abroad, so people can't see how good it is," he adds.

Two members of Daoyueshe Shiyuji, a team that covers food and customs. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

The development of some domestic games has reached a high level, Zhang says, adding that at least two or three games in the top 10 mobile game app rankings in Japan are from China now.

He cites another example, Chinese Parents, an education simulation game developed by a Chinese game producer, which, although a niche indie game, has become widely known by many foreigners thanks to the publicity and promotion efforts of various content producers.

"Through this game, international players learned that the way Chinese parents educate their children is different from that in the US," Zhang says, adding that "a US version of the game, Growing Up, was later released", produced by Polish game producer Vile Monarch in October.

Many foreigners may not understand the myths of China, "but they deem the Chinese game as fun and want to try it", Zhang says, speaking of a domestically produced game, Black Myth: Wukong, the trailer of which went viral, creating demand for the title abroad even before its official launch at home. Similarly, many other domestic indie games are mining folk customs or crafts, such as paper-cutting, to appeal to gamers.

According to another short-video creator Zhu Minghua, known as Zimin, who has worked in the sector for a decade and boasts over 3.24 million followers on Bilibili and a further 293,000 on YouTube, young people across the globe, who are enjoying a good material life, like to click and forward videos that can bring them closer, however distant they may be physically.

Chinese young people have become more confident in telling their stories, "because there are so many we can talk about", he adds.

Contact the writer at heqi@chinadaily.com.cn