Why China’s farmers rocketed to fame as livestreaming stars

It was on top of a hill, in the orange orchards on the outskirts of Zhangjiajie, a city in northwestern China’s Hunan province, where Zhong Haihui took a big leap from being a fruit farmer to becoming a livestreaming video star.

Panoramic view of Tianzi Mountain in Zhangjiajie in the Hunan province of China / Photo credit: Chensiyuan

Neighbors in his farming community were initially bewildered in 2017 at the sight of Zhong, wearing a cowboy hat and standing on a big rock, talking passionately for hours in front of his smartphone about the fruits grown in his hometown.

Two years later, the 40-year-old Zhong has found more farmers across the country jumping on the livestreaming video bandwagon to promote and sell their produce to millions of consumers in the world’s second-largest economy.

“Everything felt awkward when we first started,” said Zhong in an interview. “But [now] we see that everybody else is doing it.”

Zhong was one of the first farmers in Hunan to start selling his fruits via livestreams, reaching consumers across the country via short video-sharing platform Kuaishou and the ecommerce app from Alibaba Group Holding’s Taobao Marketplace. New York-listed Alibaba is the parent company of the South China Morning Post, while Abacus is a unit of the Post.

Zhong said he is more talkative and energetic when chatting with his followers online. He refers to himself as “Uncle,” a nickname that his followers gladly use.

He calls his viewers bao bao, which translates to “baby” in English. It is also a common term used by Taobao livestreaming hosts to address their audience, which makes them appear friendly as well as help them build rapport.

Zhong’s typical spiel: “Welcome, new babies! Tap follow if you haven’t! Follow Uncle and there will be more tasty food later!”

That is a line he goes back to almost every other minute on video while promoting his farm’s fruits on an unscheduled livestream at 10 am, when Abacus visited his farm just before the Lunar New Year in February. Hundreds tuned in within seconds.

In the same segment, Zhong also panned his camera to the mountains, hummed a random tune, and asked his audience if they had already eaten. Zhong and his 21-year-old business partner named Xiaoqiang took turns to address almost every single question that popped up on the phone, most of which were about what fruits they were selling that day or when they would resume business after the holiday. Other viewers offered holiday greetings to the two hosts.

When Zhong said he had to sign off in a few minutes, viewers tried to keep him online. “Don’t leave, Uncle. Stay and chat!” one viewer wrote, which made Zhong laugh.

Photo credit: 罗 宏志