YINCHUAN: In the absence of a professional setting and a fill light, a mobile phone and a mobile phone holder are all that Du Zhanping can count on for his livestreaming efforts. Yet it was through this basic setup that the 46-year-old man in Xuanhe township, Ningxia Hui autonomous region, was able to promote a traditional felt-making skill known to viewers across the country. In the husbandry region of Ningxia more than 1,000 kilometers from Beijing, people used to make felt by pressing, rubbing and rolling wool, creating items that were once featured in the dowry of almost every woman.
Du is an inheritor of this traditional skill, which is on the regional intangible cultural heritage list. Each generation of his family has made a living based on this skill. With the improvement of people’s living standards over time, however, felt has been used less and less, resulting in the craft’s decline.
In 2021, after taking an entrepreneurship training course, Du opened an account on short-video platform Kuaishou to try livestreaming about the traditional felt-making process. Starting from scratch, he taught himself how to shoot and edit videos, which have drawn 150,000 followers to his account. One video alone has attracted more than 18 million views.
“Every morning, I do livestreaming for more than two hours, chatting with the viewers and answering their questions,” Du said while using a bow-shaped tool to make his wool fluffy. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
