Animal ears and pom-poms on fuzzy hats adorn tourists’ heads on the streets of the frigid northeastern Chinese city of Harbin, which is enjoying a surge in visitors driven by social media.
Photographs and videos taken at the city’s landmarks flood platforms such as TikTok counterpart Douyin and Instagram-esque Xiaohongshu — many featuring tourists from the warmer south.
They are affectionately known as “southern little potatoes,” a reference to their alleged smaller stature and cutesy winter gear that contrast with the area’s stereotypically coarse character.
Photo: AFP
A search for “southern little potatoes visit the north” racked up more than 428,000 notes on Xiaohongshu.
That is where Chen Xiting, who works in e-commerce in southern Guangdong Province, said she was inspired to visit.
“It’s the quickest way young people get trip recommendations,” Chen said.
Photo: AFP
She said she had noticed a sizeable number of fellow southerners.
“I heard quite a bit of Cantonese, which we’re very familiar with, today at tourist sites and on the street,” said the 29-year-old, wearing a hat with dog ears and with only her face exposed to the air.
Liu Rong, a student from Sichuan Province, said that the city’s push for more southern tourists was clear from the surge in videos about Harbin he often watched with his wife.
“These years, especially this year, Harbin’s cultural tourism has placed a lot of importance on paying attention to us southerners,” Liu said.
Harbin is the capital of Heilongjiang, one of three provinces that make up the Dongbei (northeast) region, where temperatures can reach minus-30°C during winter.
Bordered by Russia and North Korea, it is one of China’s poorest provinces, but the first five months of last year saw the operating income of Heilongjiang’s cultural, sports and entertainment industries rise nearly 60 percent year-on-year, official data showed.
Tourists spent 154 billion yuan (US$21 billion) in the first half of last year, up 171 percent from the first half of 2023.
Popular novels and dramas set in the northeast have also helped spark a travel boom to the region.
“A lot of southerners, who we call ‘little potatoes,’ came over here for travel and made our Harbin very trendy,” said Emily Liu, a local tour guide.
The online fame has been good for the travel business, said 30-year-old Jiang Zhonglong, energetically gesticulating in front of his tripod just meters away from Liu.
He started working for a Harbin-based travel agency three years ago, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and said business was now much better.
“So many little friends, southern potatoes, tourists have all come here,” he said.
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
‘DISCRIMINATION’: The US Office of Personnel Management ordered that public DEI-focused Web pages be taken down, while training and contracts were canceled US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday moved to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off. The moves follow an executive order Trump signed on his first day ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs. Trump has called the programs “discrimination” and called to restore “merit-based” hiring. The executive order on affirmative action revokes an order issued by former US president Lyndon Johnson, and curtails DEI programs by federal contractors and grant recipients. It is using one of the
RSS