A wizened farmer leads a buffalo through a misty copse of gnarled trees in eastern China, closely followed by a woman in a straw hat heaving pails of water.
It is a tranquil image of rural Chinese life — except for the overhead whir of a drone, the hiss of a smoke machine and the excited chatter of smartphone-wielding day-trippers.
Residents in Xiapu County, in China’s Fujian Province, have achieved viral online fame by staging picturesque country scenes and charging tourists up to 300 yuan (US$41.75) to photograph them.
Photo: AFP
The scheme indulges visitors’ nostalgia for a pastoral idyll that perhaps never truly existed and has been swept away by rampant urbanization and industrial development.
“Back in the day, when we were sent down to the countryside, we used buffalo for ploughing,” said Liang Liuling, 72, on holiday from the southwestern Guangxi region.
In the 1960s and 1970s, her generation toiled for years in rural backwaters during Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) Cultural Revolution — although many remember their hardships fondly.
Photo: AFP
“Now, they’ve become props for us elderly to enjoy,” Liang said, smiling after posing for shots with the animals. “Seeing them here is just wonderful.”
About 20 percent of Chinese people lived in cities in 1980, compared to about two-thirds today — a result of the country’s rapid development.
The jarring shift in living styles feeds a trend for reminiscing about economically leaner, but arguably simpler times.
A search for Xiapu — population 480,000, small by Chinese standards — returns hundreds of thousands of posts on Douyin, the country’s version of TikTok, and on Xiaohongshu, known as Red Note in English.
Many users flaunt stunning photographs of supposedly timeless scenes and offer guides on how to create the best shots.
That the vista is manufactured does not seem to have dampened the enthusiasm of the coachloads of daily visitors.
“We saw this scenic spot online and changed our plans at the last minute to come,” tour guide Huang Jumei said, as she led a group of people mainly over 60, adding that they were “reluctant to leave.”
“It brings back childhood memories for many of us who come from farming families ... but as life has improved, most families stopped keeping cattle,” she said.
Visitors must thrash out a price with buffalo-owner Chen Weizuo before he steps in front of the cameras.
The 62-year-old poses several times a day and rents costumes for extra income.
Originally a farmer, a decade ago he borrowed a fellow villager’s buffalo and began charging a trickle of mostly local tourists for photos.
Larger groups began arriving a few years back, and he imported his own bovine from Vietnam as “no one in China sells buffaloes anymore.”
While his customers revel in nostalgia, Chen is glad to have shaken off his former life working the fields.
“Now, I spend my days under the banyan trees. In the summer, it’s cool, and when guests come I chat and joke with them,” he said.
“It’s much more relaxed,” he said, adding: “I’m not into taking photos myself.”
School bullies in Singapore are to face caning under new guidelines, but the education minister on Tuesday said it would be meted out only as a last resort with strict safeguards. Human rights groups regularly criticize Singapore for the use of corporal punishment, which remains part of the school and criminal justice systems, but authorities have defended it as a deterrent to crime and serious misconduct. Caning was discussed in the parliament after legislators asked how it would be used in relation to bullying in schools. The debate followed stricter guidelines on serious student misconduct, including bullying, unveiled by the Singaporean Ministry of
As evening falls in Fiji’s capital, a steady stream of people approaches a makeshift clinic that is a first line of defense against one of the world’s fastest-growing HIV epidemics. In the South Pacific nation — a popular tourist destination of just under a million people — more than 2,000 new HIV cases were recorded last year, a 26 percent increase from 2024. The government has declared an HIV outbreak and described it as a national crisis. “It’s spreading like wildfire,” said Siteri Dinawai, 46, who came to be tested. The Moonlight Clinic, a converted minibus parked in a suburban cul-de-sac in Suva, is
A MESSAGE: Japan’s participation in the Balikatan drills is a clear deterrence signal to China not to attack Taiwan while the US is busy in the Middle East, an analyst said The Japan Self-Defense Forces yesterday fired a Type 88 anti-ship missile during a joint maritime exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces, hitting a decommissioned Philippine Navy ship in waters facing the disputed South China Sea, in drills that underscore Tokyo’s rising willingness to project military power on China’s doorstep. The drill took place as Manila and Tokyo began talks on a potential defense equipment transfer, made possible by Japan’s decision to scrap restrictions on military exports. The discussions include the possible early transfer of Abukuma-class destroyers and TC-90 aircraft to the Philippines, Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. Philippine Secretary of
A South Korean judge who last week more than doubled former South Korean first lady Kim Keon-hee’s prison sentence was found dead yesterday, police said. Shin Jong-o was found unconscious at about 1am at the Seoul High Court building, an investigator at the Seocho District Police Station in Seoul said. Shin was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead, he said. “There is no sign of foul play in the death,” the investigator added. Local media reported that Shin had left a suicide note, but the investigator said there was none. On Tuesday last week, Shin presided over 53-year-old Kim’s appeal trial, finding her guilty
RSS