Traditional life in China

In China, Li Ziqi is a huge online star. She is sort of a hippy young Martha Stewart — a DIYer and maker, as well as ancient lifestyle guru. Dressed in traditional garb, Li Ziqi posts hundreds of videos about making traditional Chinese rural things from scratch with traditional tools — in an extreme way. She’ll make a silk comforter by first raising silk worms. She’ll make her own soy sauce by first growing soy beans. She’ll make some bamboo furniture in a day, starting with harvesting the bamboo. Plus she plays guitar and sings! To her 50 million followers in China, her idyllic and blemish-free videos are soothing and an antidote to their overworked urban lives. She delivers nostalgia for the country life they left — without the drudgery and starvation. To her 8 million foreign followers, like me, watching her on YouTube, her impossibly romantic videos are cinematic glimpses of vanishing arts and crafts, of amazing and ingenious ways millions of people thrived in the past. I could watch them for hours. — KK