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Caroline Lin

At a night market in Shenzhen, Sasa Xu finishes her day with passion fruit tea.
It costs US$2.40, bringing her total spend for the day to US$9.40 – details that close out her video “What low-income life in China really looks like”.
The video has drawn more than 470,000 views since it was posted to YouTube in April. It includes footage of Xu at a traditional wet market and walking through a densely populated “urban village” where many of the city’s low-income workers live.
“Through these simple, everyday records, I hope to show overseas audiences the vibrant and multi-dimensional lives of ordinary Chinese people,” Xu said in an interview.
Xu, 30, is an overseas influencer partnerships manager based in the southern tech hub.
She is also one of thousands of ordinary Chinese documenting their lives on YouTube for an overseas audience in a powerful shift in digital storytelling.
From vast cities like Shanghai and Shenzhen to small towns and rural villages, these unfiltered vlogs offer insights not seen in mainstream media.
Xu started her YouTube channel, “Ni hao, It’s Sasa”, in February. She posts about her daily routines and living expenses – content that has already racked up more than 1.7 million views across 28 videos.
She said she launched the channel after observing that online portrayals of the country were often very similar, one-dimensional and simplified.

Viewers have expressed surprise at how comfortable “low-income” life appears to be in China. “US$9.4 for an entire day of meals? It’s hard to buy one meal for that price in America these days, especially in bigger cities,” reads a comment from one US account.
Others have said they appreciated seeing the reality of everyday life in China. “Honest videos like this help people better understand different perspectives,” a commenter in Vietnam wrote.
Xu said her vlogs had even inspired viewers to plan trips to China.
The videos are typically around 15 minutes and document everyday life with an emphasis on authentic perspectives. They have English narration or subtitles, with titles like “What one day’s salary buys in China” or “What life’s really like for a Chinese single man”.
It seems to be working – many of the videos go viral, drawing overseas viewers who are curious about China but want to get what they see as a genuine, non-political portrayal of how an average Chinese person lives.
In the comment sections, overseas viewers praise the safety and tech-driven convenience of Chinese cities and marvel at the peaceful, self-sufficient and frugal lifestyles in rural China.
Some vloggers have said that they moved to global platforms like YouTube to earn extra income because of concerns about job security and the economy – something that resonated with viewers in other countries.
“We’re experiencing the same thing in the West. Job cutbacks, not enough pay, lack of direction and purpose, lack of community,” one viewer in Australia commented under one of the videos.
Chinese vloggers have also embraced artificial intelligence tools to help with English subtitles and voiceovers, meaning they can overcome the language barrier and reach a global audience.
But with YouTube blocked in mainland China – along with many other foreign platforms such as Google and Facebook – vloggers must use virtual private networks, or VPNs, to get around the restrictions.
China’s sprawling, modern cities feature in some videos, but international audiences are equally drawn to stories set in the less populated rural areas.
Gangzi posts about life as a food delivery rider in the city of Xuzhou in Jiangsu province on his YouTube channel, “Chinese man named Gangzi living solo”. In six months he has amassed 30,000 subscribers and more than 3.5 million views.
His vlogs focus on his gruelling work and have drawn empathy, including from overseas delivery riders who exchange stories in the comment sections.
When he returned to his rural hometown, he drew even more viewers keen to see the peaceful atmosphere of the village and close-knit community, as well as traditional parenting dynamics.
These scenes particularly resonated in South Asia. “We Indians and Chinese are so identical culturally,” one viewer wrote in a comment echoed by others.
Some viewers have shown their support with a donation through the platform’s Super Thanks feature to encourage Gangzi to keep posting.


Florian Schneider, a professor in Chinese digital media and political communication at Leiden University in the Netherlands, said the vlogs offered an important corrective to the tropes commonly seen about China in the news.
Schneider gave the examples of hyperbole about rapid technological development and the threat narratives about China’s authoritarianism.
He said the vlogs gave viewers a reality check, that Chinese people were just like anyone else – navigating work frustrations, mundane routines and moments of loneliness.
“All of that creates a much messier picture than what the Chinese state presents in its propaganda, but it may ultimately be more effective at making China relatable, precisely because it is so raw,” he said.
Schneider said the economic downturn in China was a driver for vloggers to monetise their digital content abroad, rather than competing in the overcrowded domestic social media market.
He also noted that many vloggers genuinely wanted to share their version of life in China given that foreign media reporting and Chinese government narratives did not capture their everyday struggles.
“I can imagine showing these lived experiences to people on the other side of the world is both cathartic and, to many, a moral obligation to set the record straight,” he added.
The trend has not gone unnoticed in China, but the English editing and high number of views have raised questions about whether the channels are genuinely the work of individuals or professional agencies.
Beijing has for years invested heavily in boosting its global “soft power” but state-curated or big-budget media campaigns and official cultural initiatives have often failed to win over foreign audiences.
Schneider said mainstream media coverage of China focused on politics and high-level economics, often centring on the party-state.
“As important as that is for understanding the PRC [People’s Republic of China], it leaves out what life is like for average folks,” he said.
“Seeing genuine Chinese people going about their lives on YouTube offers a glimpse of authenticity that sadly often gets buried under political reporting and propaganda, and this is something that clearly intrigues foreign viewers.”


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News

China

Diplomacy

Videos documenting daily life in big cities, small towns and villages are aimed at overseas viewers and emphasise authentic perspectives


Videos documenting daily life in big cities, small towns and villages are aimed at overseas viewers and emphasise authentic perspectives.


Shenzhen

The Netherlands

Chinese vloggers are taking to YouTube to ‘set the record straight’

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Videos documenting daily life in big cities, small towns and villages are aimed at overseas viewers and emphasise authentic perspectives

Videos documenting daily life in big cities, small towns and villages are aimed at overseas viewers and emphasise authentic perspectives