China Daily Global Edition (USA)
A field of expertise
Dancer attracts huge online interest as she moves to her own rhythm in rustic settings,
For Wei Manchun, her stage doesn’t need a spotlight. When the music starts, she forgets everything else and dances, wherever she is. She has two personas. In cyberspace, she is a 37-year-old dedicated dancer, whose clips feature her in action during or after farming her land, cooking for her family or taking care of her younger son.
In reality, she takes care of two sons and her mother-in-law in Jinjiang village in South China’s Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. Wei described herself as a “left-behind” woman, because her husband works tens of kilometers away from home, as a security guard in Nanning, capital of Guangxi. Like most “left-behind” women in her village, Wei faces the unrelenting tasks of housekeeping, child rearing and farm life.
However, on social media, she is happy marching to the beat of a different drum — a dedicated dancer, although she has never had a dance lesson. On short-video platform Douyin, she has attracted about 110,000 followers and her dancing videos have received more than 2.3 million thumbs-up emoji. Since May last year, she has uploaded more than 200 clips recording her dancing. One of the most-hit clips was uploaded on May 28 about her dancing a popular Chinese classical dance, Huo Yuanjia.
In the clip, Wei in blue rubber boots starts dancing to the music while tackling weeds walking between rows in a field. She writes in the caption accompanying the 29-second video that “weed control is very boring and I will continue after dancing, which is a way for me to relax”.
The response to the video is “beyond expectations”, Wei says. To date, it has been shared 14,000 times, generating about 1.3 million likes and 75,000 comments.
“Dance has made me happy and confident and I hope my story can encourage more women like me to enjoy dancing,” Wei says.
It is not only her in-step dance moves that are winning netizens’ hearts, but also her attitudes toward life. A Douyin user named Happy Mommy appreciates her videos, saying: “The mud under your feet is similar to life’s difficulties that everyone faces, but your beautiful dance seems to inspire people that no matter how hard the road may be, keep smiling.”
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Feel the passion
In her first 35 years, Wei didn’t think that she could dance. She didn’t have any confidence in her ability since primary school. Indeed, many times Wei tried to learn dance moves for shows in school, but failed to impress.
Then things changed in 2018, when she saw a Chinese classical dance by a group of kindergarten teachers at a gala celebrating international Women’s Day (March 8) in the village.
“The dance caught me and I started to imitate the moves,” Wei remembers. Answering why such dance attracts her, Wei says Chinese costume dramas are her favorites. She immediately felt drawn to both the classical clothing and the graceful movements.
At that time, she worked for the village committee when her second son was about 2 years old. Before getting pregnant in 2016, Wei had worked in a bank and then at electronics manufacturer Foxconn in Nanning after getting a junior college degree. She had to quit her job in the city and come back to village due to severe sickness during the pregnancy.
The transition from an urban worker to a “left-behind” woman was hard to accept for Wei at first. But dance illuminated her life in the dark days.
After finding and recognizing her passion, a notice calling for performances at a gala made Wei come up with the idea of setting up a dance team in the village.
She tried to persuade other women to join the team, but the response was, well, less than enthusiastic. She was determined not to give up. Wei started to learn a simple dance online by herself in just one week. During that week, she viewed the video hundreds of times and practiced every move until she got it right. For the movements which she could not achieve, she changed them to less complicated ones.
Her efforts paid off. One week later, the Jinjiang Village Ganhuaipo Dance Team was founded, with nine women, with Wei as the teacher. All were in their 30s to 50s. Each donated 50 yuan ($7.72) for music equipment.
Although the members, mostly “left-behind” women like Wei, were busy with household chores, they kept practicing every night for three months. The team was finally ready for the gala.
From then on, they have been available for other galas or shows. Gradually, their dance has even attracted people from nearby villages though the initial response was not always flattering.
“In the first year, we faced many mean comments. Some criticized us for being old, ugly and fat and some criticized our dancing for being disgraceful,” Wei recalls. But, she adds, the support from their families kept them going.
Burgeoning trend
In May last year, Wei quit her job at the village committee because of the low pay — 1,500 yuan per month, unchanged for three years. She had to do farm work for about a year to get an income.
Although working in the farm is laborious, Wei has actually more time to dance. When she browsed on Douyin, Wei found that content related to country life is very popular. She uploaded her first video on Douyin on May 28, 2020. In the video, Wei in her farmer hat and boots dances in Chinese classical style in the field.
Since then, every two or three days, she uploads a video of her dancing, in the field, along a country road, in the yard or at the house renovation site. To reach the ideal status, she recorded every clip for several times.
Talking about the future, Wei hopes she can “take a dance course one day and become more professional in dancing”.
She found a job in the village in June, which requires her to work from 8 am to 6 pm from Monday to Friday. Although dancing has already become a part of her life, the priority is still to make ends meet.
“I hope more people can follow me online and when I have time, I can livestream to sell goods, like agricultural products, to make some money,” Wei says.
Such videos of farmers showcasing their talent have proved particularly popular on social media. One of the biggest social media stars is Li Ziqi, who gets famous for posting rustic-chic videos of her life in rural Sichuan province.
According to a recent report released by Douyin, in the past year, the videos related to country life have gained 12.9 billion likes on the platform.
On short-video platform Kuaishou, the number of users interested in agriculture surpassed 200 million by the end of last year.
To catch the trend, video platforms have intensified their competition to lure good content creators.
Douyin unveiled its latest program, called New Farmer Project 2021, to lure talented farmers. It plans to give various support, including training, data flow support and activities, to help its influencers to be seen by more people.
“Rural China is giving birth to the next generation of internet celebrities,” Xinhua News Agency quoted Clayton Dube, director of University of Southern California’s US-China Institute at a webinar.