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Letters | How young and digital-savvy ‘new farmers’ are reviving rural China
- Readers discuss the social media allure and economic value of young Chinese embracing the simple life, the country’s shrinking population, and respect for Hong Kong workers
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High unemployment has persisted among China’s youth in the past several years. Some young people, perhaps unemployed, enterprising or both, are returning to their hometowns to embrace a rural lifestyle. Armed with modern entrepreneurial skills, some of them hope to gain popularity on social media platforms. As “new farmers”, they have the potential to build a sizeable audience and monetise their reach through the creative economy.
Aquan and Shisan, the husband-and-wife duo behind the Weibo account ShisanAquan, went viral last year after they bought a log cabin in Inner Mongolia. The couple had been living as digital nomads for 10 years, operating a women’s clothing store on Taobao and creating travel-based content for Twitter-like Weibo.
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Recently, they went to the log cabin with their children for New Year and an enchanting rural experience, with blankets of snow, galloping horses and warmhearted neighbours.
In our view, their story has gone viral not only because of their already-established social media celebrity (they have around 0.6 million followers), but also because it stirs up nostalgia for simpler times amid the mainland’s continuous and rapid urbanisation.
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At the same time, thanks to China’s strong digital infrastructure, “new farmers” such as Shisan and Aquan may use their expertise in e-commerce and content creation to modernise agricultural life and raise standards of living.
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