INFLUENCER

A popular vlogger known for showcasing traditional Chinese cuisine and arts and crafts recently captured the attention of netizens with her latest work – a 30-meter-long ice sculpture of a dragon in Changchun, Northeast China’s Jilin Province.

In the video posted on February 6, Jiang Xunqian and her team are seen carving the serpentine sculpture, a feat that earned them over 8.68 million likes. However, skeptics managed to chill the achievement, questioning whether Jiang herself had created the sculpture or if it was predominantly the work of her team, with her merely posing for the camera.

In response, Jiang returned to Changchun to carve another ice dragon, this time livestreaming the process. The nearly six-hour livestream on February 22 showcased Jiang carving the ice dragon mostly by herself, drawing over 100,000 simultaneous viewers and more than 20 million likes.

This was not the first time Jiang has showcased her artistic talent. Her meticulously crafted videos have earned her 17.1 million followers on Douyin (China’s Tiktok). Born in a small town in Hunan Province, Jiang showed an interest in drawing at a young age. After working as a freelance game concept designer in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province for six years, she began vlogging her passion for traditional Chinese foods and arts and crafts in 2019.

Jiang documented her experiences with different folk artisans in learning to make shadow puppets and paper kites to fish lanterns and sugar paintings. In 2023, Jiang became the sole female apprentice of Yang Jianjun, the inheritor of an ancient performance art called striking iron flowers, or datiehua.

In a video shared in November, Jiang delivered a datiehua performance, slinging streaks of white-hot molten iron into the air to create dazzling displays that resemble a shower of stars.