Dianxi Xiaoge
Dianxi Xiaoge 滇西小哥 | ||||||||||
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Born | 1990 (age 33–34) | |||||||||
Alma mater | Sichuan Police College | |||||||||
Occupation | vlogger | |||||||||
Years active | 2016–present | |||||||||
YouTube information | ||||||||||
Channels | ||||||||||
Years active | 2018–present | |||||||||
Genre | Cooking
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Subscribers | 10.7 million (Dianxi Xiaoge) 480,000 (阿盆姐家的大王 Apenjie with Dawang) | |||||||||
Total views | 3.5 billion (Dianxi Xiaoge) 106 million (阿盆姐家的大王 Apenjie with Dawang) | |||||||||
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Last updated: February 02, 2024 | ||||||||||
Online name Dianxi Xiaoge | ||||||||||
Hanyu Pinyin | Ā Pén Jiě | |||||||||
Yue: Cantonese | ||||||||||
Jyutping | Aa3 Pun4 Ze2 |
Dianxi Xiaoge (Chinese: 滇西小哥; lit. 'Little Brother in Western Yunnan'; born 1990) is a Chinese food vlogger and YouTuber from Yunnan. Dianxi Xiaoge, along with Ms Yeah and Li Ziqi, are the only Chinese Internet celebrities who have reached international prominence, according to the Southern Metropolis Daily in 2019.[1] Her actual name is Dong Meihua (simplified Chinese: 董梅华; traditional Chinese: 董梅華), and she goes by the nicknames Penji (simplified Chinese: 盆鸡; traditional Chinese: 盆雞; lit. 'Bucket Chicken') and Apenjie (Chinese: 阿盆姐; lit. 'Bucket Sister').
Dianxi Xiaoge lives in a family farm in a small western mountain in the town of Youwang in Shidian County in Baoshan, Yunnan. It was challenging for her parents to make a living farming in the village, which led her to seek schooling and employment outside her province. Dianxi Xiaoge studied to become a police officer at Sichuan Police College though upon graduation in 2012 chose to join an Internet startup company in the marketing department. She planned to eventually buy a house in Chongqing and move her parents in so they would all have a better life. But she returned to her village in 2016 after her father had a heart attack. To make a living in Yunnan, Dianxi Xiaoge began selling local specialities online before capitalizing on the rise in 2016 of short videos when she started posting her own. She created her YouTube channel in 2018 and first went viral internationally after releasing a video where she made hamburgers for her grandparents who had never eaten them before.
Scholars have called her a
Life and career
Home
Dianxi Xiaoge lives in a
Early life
Dianxi Xiaoge (Chinese: 滇西小哥),[8] whose actual name is Dong Meihua (simplified Chinese: 董梅华; traditional Chinese: 董梅華), was born in 1990 in Shidian County in Baoshan, a prefecture-level city in the southwestern part of China's Yunnan province which borders Myanmar.[3][9][10] In Chinese, "Dian" is for short for Yunnan and "Xi" means "west".[3] She included the phrase as part of her online name since she lives in the western part of Yunnan.[3] In Chinese, "Xiaoge" means "little brother".[8] Despite being a woman, she calls herself this since she had been a tomboy as a child.[3] She found "Xiaomei" (Chinese: 小妹) to be too cute, whereas she liked "Xiaoge" for coming across as more playful and carefree.[6] She has had Dianxi Xiaoge as her online name since around 2016.[3] Dianxi Xiaoge also has the nickname Penji (simplified Chinese: 盆鸡; traditional Chinese: 盆雞; lit. 'Bucket Chicken'), and her viewers call her Apenjie (Chinese: 阿盆姐; lit. 'Bucket Sister'),[4][11][12][13] mimicking her younger brother (Chinese: 小豪), Xiaohao, who calls her Apenjie in the videos.[11] Her village's tradition is that when a baby is born, the mother's family will visit.[11] The newborn will be named by whatever the family brings.[11] Dianxi Xiaoge's maternal grandmother brought a bucket for cleansing and a chicken, which is why she was given the nickname "Penji" or "Bucket Chicken".[11]
Her father is Dong Chaoyu.
As a youth who grew up in the mountains, Dianxi Xiaoge had a deep desire to leave her hometown for a city where she would buy property and forge a better life for her family.[3] When filling out her university preferences for the gaokao, she did not choose a single university in Yunnan.[3] Dianxi Xiaoge attended the Sichuan Police College .[3] She participated in rescue efforts during the August 14, 2010, landslide in Yingxiu.[4] The public security bureau of Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture awarded her with a third-class Meritorious Service Medal for her rescue work.[4] Dianxi Xiaoge was riding a bus in 2011 when it suddenly burst into flames.[4] After she helped rescue people on the bus, the Sichuan Public Security Bureau gave her a second-class Meritorious Service Medal.[4] The Luzhou city government in 2012 gave her the "Luzhou City acting bravely for a just cause warrior" award and the "Luzhou City Jiangyang District acting bravely for a just cause citizen" award.[4] That year, the Sichuan Provincial Committee of the Communist Youth League of China gave her the "Outstanding Communist Youth League Member of Sichuan Province" award.[4] While in college, she received monetary awards from the commendations for her actions during two rescue operations.[15] Throughout her four years of college, she did not request funds from her family for her expenses since they were covered by her monetary awards.[15]
Career
Dianxi Xiaoge graduated from Sichuan Police College in 2012, after which she sent her resume to provinces other than Yunnan since she had no interest in going home.
Once home, she was initially perplexed about what to do to make a living as she had observed her parents' struggles.
Dianxi Xiaoge signed an agreement in 2017 to be represented by the multi-channel network Papitube established by Papi Jiang.[1][16] Within two to three years, she became a full-time video creator after viewership rose and she was making substantial profit, while those other creators she had envied were no longer making videos.[6] She had not initially planned to have non-Chinese audiences view her videos.[17] Dianxi Xiaoge started her YouTube channel in 2018 and within three months had grown her subscriber base from zero to one million in November 2018.[7][18] Her video about her making hamburgers for her grandparents went viral in China and outside the country which brought her a lot of attention.[7][19] Having lived their entire lives in the village, her grandparents had not previously eaten hamburgers which they viewed as a Western dish.[7][19] After initially using the camera from her phone to film videos, she switched to using a Sony α7 camera.[7] She spends her time in the village on most days rather than going into the town.[3] Her day is occupied with filming and editing videos of her cooking.[3]
Some overseas Chinese students in 2018 provided translated captions in numerous languages for Dianxi Xiaoge's videos which significantly grew her fanbase.
Videos
Dianxi Xiaoge uploads videos weekly on Wednesdays.[12] She makes videos of food from Yunnan using produce that she planted, harvested, and raised herself.[22] Her videos depict the entire process of how food gets from the fields to her dinner table.[23] Some of her videos depict Yunnan dishes she has previously consumed but not cooked.[7] Shadowing and relying on instructions from village elders, she made those dishes for the first time for her videos.[7]
She goes up the mountains in the early spring to pick wild fruits and vegetables.
Dianxi Xiaoge features her dog, a male
In many of her videos, Dianxi Xiaoge makes multiple kinds of dishes using a highlighted ingredient, such as tropical fruit, beef balls, potatoes, or Yunnan-style cheese.[18] She makes Yunnan-style mooncakes that have a honey-sweetened ham filling.[26] Dianxi Xiaoge uploaded a video around November 2020 of her consuming a lettuce wrap containing chili pepper, garlic, and meat. Korean commenters shared unfavorable feedback since she uploaded the video with "I'll continue to share my life and Yunnan-styled food in my uploads" in the description, but the commenters thought her dish was made in the same way as ssam, a Korean food.[27]
She does not have professional
Commentary
Style
Dianxi Xiaoge showcases the local style of the ethnic minority in Yunnan
Dianxi Xiaoge said that there were three broad categories for short videos. In the first, viewers learn how to do something such as cook a dish. In the second, viewers are made to laugh. In the third, viewers learn about the fine cuisine of a particular culture and the social customs and local conditions of a place. Her initial videos were in the first category of teaching people to cook a dish but the style was unsuccessful since Yunnan's unique ingredients made it challenging for viewers to follow her videos to make the same dish. She could make instructional cooking videos of dishes that did not need Yunnan's unique ingredients but that would make her indistinguishable from other video makers. Dianxi Xiaoge said her videos belonged to the third category as with numerous food ingredients and over 50 ethnic groups, Yunnan has much for her to examine and show. She did not include subtitles in her videos since her aim was not to teach people to cook dishes but to show her village's way of living. Dianxi Xiaoge speaks with her family in the Baoshan dialect of
Xinhua News Agency and the 2021 book The Future of Global Retail compared Dianxi Xiaoge to fellow food vlogger Li Ziqi.[8][22] The two women both have numerous followers who are not from China and have an identical business model. Like Li, Dianxi Xiaoge uploads videos to YouTube and sells the cooking merchandise depicted in her videos on the online shopping platform Taobao. Whereas Dianxi Xiaoge has candid videos in which people in the backdrop do not seem to know they are part of the video, Li's videos look "dreamlike" and seem to be shot almost too perfectly". For making dishes, Dianxi Xiaoge employs a steel bucket, something that other families in the country would use, whereas Li has an "'antique wood' bucket" that could be from a house furnished by an interior designer. Dianxi Xiaoge comes across as "the girl next door, warm, chatty and casual", who makes "simple and interesting dishes" sourced from her village's crops. Nie said that "both portray a serene pastoral life with wonderful food and enticing dishes" and "are successful entrepreneurs that leverage our dreams of living simply but also fulfil our desires for quality produce and sensory experiences".[8]
Compared to other rural creators in China, Dianxi Xiageo's videos do not have as much speaking and have "more refined countryside images" as her videos are skillfully filmed and edited.[16] Writing for Mashable, Amanda Yeo called her "basically a kindhearted Disney heroine made real — you get the impression that she lives in happy harmony with her family, her local community, and nature all at once".[29] A Southern Metropolis Daily reviewer found that her videos over the years had improved in having clearer audio and more apt background music.[1] The scholar Han Li found that after Dianxi Xiaoge partnered with the MCN Papitube, she has capably demonstrated her "flight from the city".[16] Likening Dianxi Xiaoge to the Chinese documentary television series A Bite of China, Xinhua said Dianxi Xiaoge could be called A Bite of Yunnan in introducing Yunnan cuisine to the world.[22] Kaila Yu of Paper called Dianxi Xiaoge a cottagecore producer who embodies "the traditional family unit", a common theme of Chinese creators in the genre.[25] Worcester Polytechnic Institute professor Jennifer deWinter said of Dianxi Xiaoge's videos, "It's a complete brain break: pleasant sounds and pleasant visuals and a kind of Chinese cottagecore aesthetic."[2] Li concluded that the high viewership of her videos is owing to the bucolic rural way of living, the peaceful imagery, and the uncommon dishes and ways of cooking in Yunnan.[16]
Anti-consumerism and anti-commercialism
Overall, Dianxi xiaoge's countryside videos involve multiple paradoxes regarding the rural idyll. As for the "rural" aspect, her videos are filled with visual images of local ethnic and rural signifiers. ... In addition to local distinctiveness, her videos also seek to use the slow-paced rural temporality as an alternative social ordering to resist the time-space of urban living and capitalistic commodification. The rural life demonstrated in her videos is real, yet fantastic; is of slow-paced leisure, yet can only exist in fast-edited temporality; and is detached from commercialism, yet still highly commodified. In Dianxi xiaoge's video, the aestheticization of everyday life blurs the boundaries of art, life, and fantasy. To viewers, the modern fantasy of rural idyll needs to be displayed as real life to be "true" or "believable"; however, for Dianxi xiaoge and her family, their everyday life can only be seen if it meets the horizon of such a fantasy.
—Han Li in the International Journal of Communication[16]
Chinese culture, rural living, and implicit government support
Chinese culture is a theme in Dianxi Xiaoge's videos. Lugging a suitcase, her brother, Chun, returns from the city to their family in a Chinese New Year video. The poignant scene invokes the Chinese concept of "Xiangchou" (Chinese: 乡愁) in which people are nostalgic of their hometown. The video shows a joyful family sharing an abundant meal and enjoying fireworks.[2] Her videos are an example of the rural living segment of the Wanghong economy.[33]
Videos like Dianxi Xiaoge's combat the perception of villages being a trend. The Chinese government did not introduce any restrictions on Dianxi Xiaoge, despite her being very popular on YouTube, which the scholar Li Han found "very telling".[28] Dianxi Xiaoge and fellow vlogger Li Ziqi have a high-profile presence on YouTube, which the Chinese government has blocked.[2] Isobel Cockerell of Coda Media said, "Given their visibility and large followings, it is likely that their work has at least the tacit approval of the state. After all, the vision of life they present is a useful one."[2] Xinhua News Agency's Julia Pierrepont III said that Dianxi Xiaoge makes a large amount of money while "capitalizing on the return to the global simpler life movement" and "help[ing] promote the development of rural China".[32] The City University of Hong Kong called her one of the "important participants in China's current cultural export" in showing the pastoral lifestyle of villages and Yunnan culture and cuisine.[23] Her content coincides with the Chinese government's focus on elevated "cultural confidence" in which Chinese people enjoy and exult in Chinese culture and identity.[17] Han Li wrote in the International Journal of Communication that by creating a "hyperreality of Yunnan countryside life", "this ostensibly peaceful pastoral life, rather than a truthful representation of rural life, is more of simulacrum constructed according to a normative idyllic dream".[16] Dianxi Xiaoge said in 2019 that she left the city to return to her village not only because her father had gotten ill, but also to escape the difficult living situation in the city where she had a strenuous work schedule, expensive cost of living, and feelings of instability.[16]
References
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- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Cockerell, Isobel (2021-04-21). "How Chinese cottagecore swept the internet: Li Ziqi and Dianxi Xiaoge have billions of views documenting a fairytale version of life in rural China". Coda Media. Archived from the original on 2021-10-11. Retrieved 2021-10-11.
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External links
- Official website Archived 2021-10-11 at the Wayback Machine
- Dianxi Xiaoge's channel on YouTube
- Dianxi Xiaoge on Weibo (in Chinese)
- Dianxi Xiaoge interview playlist from the South China Morning Post Publishers' Goldthread via YouTube