Voices from the fields

A vlogger captures authentic stories of rural China, highlighting villagers living ordinary yet remarkable lives, Meng Wenjie reports.

On Sep 3, China's V-Day military parade day, a video featuring the stories of five veterans went viral. These heroes, who once risked their lives on the battlefield to defend the country, now live as ordinary farmers, continuing to serve as the backbone of rural China.

The video, which has garnered over 350,000 views on the Chinese social media platform Bilibili, was created by 30-year-old vlogger Zhao Yushun and his partner for their channel "Yuzhenjishi" (Encountering Reality).

With more than 700,000 followers, Zhao has spent the past five years traveling through villages and small towns across China, recording the lives of ordinary people under his motto: "Making the overlooked visible".

"Filming these village documentaries is my way of gradually reconnecting with my roots," Zhao said.

His journey began in 2021. Before that, Zhao worked for newspapers and media companies, driven by the ambition to "escape rural life and become a city dweller" — a dream shaped by his own experiences as a left-behind child in rural Hunan, like many others in China's countryside.

The turning point came when Zhao spent three years working in a small fishing village in Hainan, where he rediscovered the unique charm of life outside the city.

"Cities all feel the same. You see similar chain stores everywhere, and everything starts to blend together," he said. "But every village is unique, with different crops, dialects, and landscapes — whether by the sea, in the mountains, or on the plains."