The scene opens in a village courtyard in China’s southwestern Yunnan province, a family sitting around a flickering fire. The camera pans as they chat in the glow. “Will Chun be back for the spring festival?” someone asks. A young woman named Dianxi calls her brother. The action cuts to a man in his early twenties, his face lit by a computer screen. “I don’t know yet,” he says. We then see him walking through the streets of a bustling city, alone. 

That melancholy image contrasts sharply with the morning peace of the countryside, where lowing cows are led through leafy lanes, and the family prepare for the celebrations. Dianxi begins to cook. Bull-shaped buns for the year of the ox, steamed in a bamboo basket. Beef ribs, braised with spices in a clay pot. A fat fried carp, smothered in spicy sauce. Her dog, an Alaskan Malamute named Dawang, chews on festive lanterns.

Dianxi Xiaoge’s real name is Dong Meihua. She has seven million subscribers on YouTube and another five million on the Chinese microblogging site Weibo. Her videos offer beautifully shot vignettes of rural life that are a world away from the highly industrialized, urban China many of us are now used to seeing. Filmed on a bucolic family farm, fans can watch her perform a variety of wholesome and traditional tasks: preserving meat, picking fruit, harvesting vegetables and making noodles. 

Dianxi’s enormous audience is outstripped only by that of Li Ziqi, who documents a similar existence in neighboring Sichuan province. Li’s subscribers total more than 15 million. Her videos have an ethereal quality, showing her riding a horse through her village in a long red cape, or walking through orchards filled with peach blossom and making flower crowns with her grandmother. Commenters marvel at her skills, which include making furniture out of bamboo, traditional embroidery and calligraphy, woodblock printing and cooking elaborate dishes.