China Daily Global Edition (USA)
A cut above the rest
Online series on clothing and manufacturing centers across the country proves to be an unlikely hit, Chen Nan reports.
Five years ago, when Xu Yajun quit his job as an agent of a talent management company in Beijing, he started taking videos of himself and talking about topics related to clothes.
It’s not a foreign territory for the 30-year-old. Xu was born in Jiaozuo, Henan province, and moved to Dongguan, Guangdong province, at the age of 6 with his parents, who worked at a clothing factory.
Xu dropped out of middle school and worked at a clothing factory in Dongguan for four years. He learned about making clothes, especially sorting out different fabrics and knitting, both handmade and by machine.
“I know clothes very well. So when I decided to launch my own social media platform and make short videos, I started with shooting programs that I am good at,” Xu says.
“From the feedback of viewers, I learned that many people don’t know the process of making clothing and they have no idea what the industry is about, which inspired me to make more videos.”
In the beginning he mainly evaluated the quality of different clothing brands in his videos, which built him a fan base on video-sharing and livestreaming platform Bilibili.
In late 2017, he traveled to Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province, to take a video of the burgeoning e-commerce business there.
When he visited the city’s Sijiqing clothing market — one of the country’s largest wholesale and shopping areas for clothing, Xu found many social media fashion influencers went there to shop.
He also visited nearby clothing factories and interviewed many workers and owners.
“Unlike white-collar workers working in bigger cities like Beijing,
Shanghai and Guangzhou, who are paid monthly, these workers are paid by the number of clothes they make every day. They would love to work extra hours to make more money,” Xu says.
He once interviewed a couple in a clothing factory, who worked 14 to 15 hours a day, seven days a week.
“Besides the clothes and online influencers, I want the viewers to see more about what’s behind the story,” he adds.
Xu posted the video on Jan 2, 2018, on his Bilibili channel, which has been viewed over 5.7 million times. It also became the first video of his series of videos, titled Made in China, a hit on social media.
In the past three years, Xu has visited over 20 factories across China to take videos and do interviews about the country’s manufacturing industry.
Made in China includes about 30 videos, each running from 10 to 30 minutes. Now, Xu has nearly 1 million followers on Bilibili.
“The videos don’t look glamorous but are compelling and thoughtprovoking. They portray things in a simple way, which involves us closely in those workers’ daily lives,” comments one netizen.
Another viewer comments: “I buy things every day but I have never seen what happens in a manufacturing plant. It’s interesting to picture that a wig made by a woman in a factory in an unknown town in
Henan province may be bought by someone living on the other side of the world.”
When asked if the filming was welcomed by factory owners, Xu says “sure”.
“There were lots of discussion before we actually started shooting. The factory owners were very cooperative because our videos will help them to be known by more people and ultimately bring new opportunities for their businesses,” Xu says.
“Every single person we filmed had to give us the OK to hang out with them, and then we had to build trust and relationships with everybody.”
He took the videos on his phone, which made the shooting look less formal and his interviews more relaxed.
He traveled with one photographer and another person who took care of postproduction.
Besides the scenes inside factories, they also captured lives around them by shooting restaurants and entertainment venues nearby. One such place Xu visited was a small town called Tangwu in Changle county in Shandong province.
The town is home to more than 100,000 people and over 10,000 work directly or indirectly in the production of electric guitars.
Their products are sold worldwide and the yearly output is about one-third of the total number of electric guitars produced in the country.
“One of the workers, a middleaged man, told me that his favorite band is Red Hot Chili Peppers from the United States and his favorite song is the band’s Don’t Forget Me,” Xu says. “Isn’t it amazing?”
He also visited villages in Henan, where people make wigs and snow boots, and Caoxian county in Shandong, which is a center for the manufacture of performance costumes.
He says many of the factories are run by families, usually husbandand-wife teams. The younger generations are well-educated and they have returned to their hometowns to work in family businesses with their open vision and new knowledge.
“I believe that in 10 years, China’s manufacturing industry will be changed by these young people,” Xu says.
He has seen many changes in the industry, especially domestic consumers’ increasing support for products by Chinese enterprises.
“I realized that Chinese buyers, the younger generations in particular, are open to buying products made by Chinese enterprises. They embrace brands with quality and concept rooted in Chinese culture,” Xu says.
“It’s a great change, which motivates Chinese companies to bring out better products.”
Now, Xu is working as a “bridge” to connect students of Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology with clothing manufacturers. Students are paid to contribute their ideas to the factories, from designing, making clothes to marketing.
“Hopefully, the collaboration will benefit both sides,” Xu says.
I believe that in 10 years, China’s manufacturing industry will be changed by these young people.”
Xu Yajun, host and producer of short video series MadeinChina