Hello, welcome to Roundtable, where we serve up piping hot debates on the issues that sizzle in China and beyond.
I'm Yuhong Lin. From steamy street food to historical landmarks, we've all got reasons why our hometown is the best.
These days, more and more young people in China are eager to promote where they come from.
So buckle up as we take a trip through the eyes of the locals, uncovering what makes other's hometowns your perfect travel destinations.
For today's show, I'm joined by Lai Ming and Li Yi.
Now grab your virtual compass and follow us to the heart of the discussion.
In recent years, several cities in China have gone viral for their local specialties, like Shenyang's bathhouse culture or Harbin's Eyes and Snow festivals.
But for locals in other areas, each of us has our own reason why our hometown deserves the spotlight.
I'm not just saying this, cuz a recent survey found that 97 % of young respondents wish to promote their hometowns with scenic spots, local delicacies, and traditional customs being their top recommendations.
So if you haven't decided your holiday destination just yet, come and listen to the places that are being recommended.
So let's start with this research first.
So why are people so eager to recommend their hometowns and what they're being so proud of?
Sure. This is a survey conducted by the China Youth Daily Social Research Center in collaboration with Wenjen .com and a survey platform.
And as you said, it finds out that nearly 97 % of over 1 ,000 young respondents, they're eager to promote their hometowns with scenic spots, local delicacies, and traditional customs being the top aspect they want to recommend.
And the respondents actually spend various age groups, but representing a major Gen Z group, over 50 % of them being Gen Z.
And many of these respondents believe that their hometown deserve to be known by more people.
So that's why they're really advocating for their hometowns.
And also 88 % of these young people express that they hope their hometown will one day go viral online.
And I mean, it's just one day before the national holiday.
And on those social media platforms and short video platforms, you can easily find these videos.
I mean, many young people, they're posting videos recommending their hometowns, inviting everyone to visit during the holiday with hashtags like, I advocate for my hometown, welcome to my hometown, let me introduce my hometown to you.
And on DoYin, the hashtag I advocate for my hometown has really gathered over 1 .8 million people to participate in this trend and gained 43 billion views, and also on social media platform Red, 6 .4 million videos with the same hashtag, I advocate for my hometown are there.
And especially, there are actually tutorial videos teaching people how to make this videos.
I mean, recommendation, hometown recommendation videos, and some of them are being super professional.
I watched one of them.
It even outlined, you know, very professional b -rolls and different characters storylines and also different shooting techniques for this young people who are eager to recommend their hometowns very interesting.
They were phenomenal, not even amateur level anymore.
Well, it's a small scale survey in China Youth Daily Social Research Center, about 1333 people responded to the survey over the internet.
But I think both you and I and also whoever that's listening might agree that we take pride in our hometown, especially in light of what we've been following over the social media, also in the field of tourism over the past few years, beginning with what's the first town that got so famous in Shandong
province, following followed by what's the other city Tian Shui, and then there's one in Northeast China.
So, also plus, plus the efforts being being fielded by cultural and tourism bureaus in different parts of the country.
We see that when there's a round of of attention being given to these high profile cities, hitherto not very well known around the world.
I think the mentality has been changing a little bit.
When I was relatively young, for example, 10 years ago or 15 years ago, when I first get out of my hometown and started to communicate with people from other outside of Shenzi province, that's my hometown, I would definitely recommend it, but I would also say certain things like, ah, Shenzi is a really
great province, you have you have to be there, but there are some buts, but it's a place with a lot of destinations.
Yet the transportation system might not be that convenient.
You'd better be able to drive your own car so that you can get from one destination to the other one around two or three hours.
It's not that convenient.
And I would also say things, you better prepare yourself because we have a lot of very delicious noodles, but we're not really sure if they are up to your appetite.
So I still have this tiny little concern over whether or not my hometown can offer as much as you would need.
I would give you this a little bit warning, and I want the hometown to perform really, really well, but I'm not overly confident.
But look at young people these days.
They are sure that their hometown, these places, they are so proud of it, and they have a lot of good reason to be really proud of it.
And actually, Roundtable started our little own little campaign, internet campaign, and we asked our listeners whether or not you'd like to let's say recommend your hometown.
And we've received a lot of messages and we selected some to share with our listeners right here.
And one of the short clip we received, I'm going to give you a little bit background because this is not exactly a short clip.
This is actually one of the professional videos Lee E was talking about.
She sent us a video and this place is Daqing, and the video is about Daqing.
Our dear listener Wang Qing, we recommend her hometown Daqing, and we selected the audio part to share with you.
Hello, everyone. I'd like to introduce my hometown, Daqing.
Daqing, an oil city holding up the backbone of the Republic, lies in the southwest of Heilongjiang Province.
Besides beautiful sceneries, there is also unique cultural heritage.
Can you name out the following delicacies?
Dreddle chest. In local dialect we call it old manfish.
Only in the northeastern China can you taste this authentic delicacy.
Another very special fruit is called Golden Berry, we call it goonia.
You may find varieties of tomatoes in my hometown, big and small, red, green, orange, and yellow.
Like the varieties of tomatoes, you can also enjoy the clouds of different shapes, mysing and scattering.
A company with the clouds, there are so many donkey pumpers when you go around Daqing City.
Daqing is well known for its oil industry.
Wang Jingxi was a model worker in China's Daqing oil field.
He was known as an airman for his patriotic determination to share the nation's burdens and win honor for the people.
The spirit of the airman inspires me all the time.
You see the donkey pamper contouring day and night.
Wherever I am, I will always remember the spirit of airman and do everything possible to achieve the impossible.
Never give up as the donkey pamper do.
Lastly, I sincerely welcome all of you to my hometown, Daqing.
Thank you. Thank you, Qingyu for sending this lovely, lovely, lovely video.
And actually, we had to take out the background music.
That's why your voice is a little bit distorted, tiny little bit.
And also without the really great pictures she put into the video, actually, I think everyone deserves, we should find a way to post that video somewhere so that you would be able to enjoy the pictures as well.
I can really relate to the message that she sent to us because she's talking about a city in northeastern China here, and especially this Daqing city.
It used to be the major oil production city area here in China.
And also she mentioned particularly those small and big and small tomatoes, to be honest, forgive me.
It was also my first time to know that there are green tomatoes when I visited northeastern part of China.
And there you can find abundant varieties of different, not only agricultural products, but also a lot of products in general.
And also she mentioned how the city has been witnessing the oil production industry here in the country.
And also I believe for many people here in China, we actually know northeastern part of the country as the major - The old industrial base.
Yes, old industrial base.
And so in this small and big cities, you can find different traces of the country's whole industrial process as a whole.
So I think it can also be a very unique travel experience if you visited these small cities to really look at how industrialization took place in China a few decades ago.
By the way, the name Daqing literally means great celebration.
And it refers to the 10th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, the founding of the country.
And we're welcoming the 75th anniversary of it.
So it's really a great place to visit during this holiday.
And I also couldn't help but notice the way she introduced the city where she grew up.
And that is she includes delicacies and also the culture that's associated with the city.
And in her case is the prevalent culture related to industry and the oil production.
And so the young people these days now have a way to appeal to the general tourists out there.
And they know what people are looking for and they're quite experts in building a name for their own city.
Yeah. And listening to something like this makes me want to go visit Daqing definitely.
But I have to make a tough decision because there's another place that I really want to visit.
Oh yeah, the Lengnan area in Gansu Province.
Yes, because according to Wang Zhengming, his hometown also deserves a lot of attention.
After several years as a drifter in Beijing, I returned to my hometown, Chengkangpi, Longlan City, Gansu Province last year.
For the first time, I was impressed by the astonishing natural scenery and rich cultural heritage of my hometown.
The mountains here are just like the mountains in the A Paranormal of Rivers and Mountains by Wang Xinmen.
The geologic landscapes in my hometown are gifts from the nature.
There are plenty of great places to visit.
I highly recommend Mount Jifeng and Da Yuen Temple.
Local specialties are an important part of their journey.
And Mianpi, Yang Yuijiao Toan, Yocha Mata, are must -haves.
A ratio maker visit to my hometown soon.
Thank you so much, Wang Zhengming.
And actually, the video, well, this is an audio.
And it's as long as five minutes.
And I feel like half of them are lists of the places we must visit, the delicacies we must try, and a lot of cultural allusions.
Well, yes, that we are learning a little bit even.
And yeah, thank you so much.
And we only selected one minute, but yes, we've enjoyed the whole five minutes.
And both of you are making this choice for me of which city to visit.
A really tough call.
And I believe the cricket spoke just as strongly as you did.
I mean, we are convinced that you do have very good natural scenery where you are.
Yes, thank you guys so much.
And in the meantime, from these audio clips, we already can see how well educated these young people are about their hometown.
They're not only talking about the things that they have experienced, but also the historical stories and backgrounds, as well as the cultural element of these different places.
And in the meantime, not only are we looking at someone who are actively advocating their hometowns, if you go to Chinese internet, you can see that young people are definitely taking ownership when it comes to, for example, on a lot of different social media platforms, when the official account of their
local or the province or the city's tourism authorities, when they try to promote the places, you will see a lot of different comments saying, okay, this is what you should do.
These are the places that you would recommend.
You should listen to Netizen's appeal about making, for example, the transportation system more convenient.
So not only are they advocating, they're also giving very constructive devices to the local authorities so that in a day or two they can make their hometown on the map.
Well, and it's possible.
I mean, just in the background we described earlier how tourism seems to be picking up in the past few years.
I believe there is a little capacity issue at places that are traditionally very popular.
These hot spots can get very crowded, and we often see them during the spring festival and national day holidays in the past years, in spite of the COVID, and that's for sure.
But every year, almost every year when it's a very important and long national holiday, we see in the news where the tourist attractions are always crowded.
So we've reached a certain point of saturation at these hot spot tourist attractions.
That really creates the room for people to find better ground in smaller cities or even small townships that previously wasn't very well known to the general public.
That is a very reasonable idea.
And meantime, when you look at these young people, they're advocating and truly recommending their hometowns to more people, to the general public on a social media platform.
I mean, this trend isn't really that new recommending your hometown.
I believe a few decades ago you can see local tourism authorities, they're really inviting celebrities to advocate for their hometown to really let the place to be known by more people.
And then I think one year or two years ago, you start to notice that the leaders of the local tourism authorities, they are becoming the official, I mean, spokesperson for this place.
And stars in these promotional videos.
Yes, they are becoming so popular.
And now you see these everyday users, they're becoming the tourism or touristic guides of their hometowns, and especially these young people.
Some of them are not really professional tourism vloggers and even not KOL, but they're truly appreciating and also invite more people to appreciate the beauty of their hometown.
I think it has something to do with people's appreciation of smaller places in general, we talk about this, these topics for a lot of times on Roundtable from different aspects.
But I think a few years ago, a few decades ago, you can see people they're just they're just running into bigger cities for tourist destinations during holidays, and they think visiting Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, there's something that you need to do during holidays.
But now I think people start to appreciate the diversity of beauty across China, and especially for this local young residents, they're they're beginning to really rediscover this pride in their hometown and also so that's why they're eager to recommend their hometown to more people.
But I have to ask this, because from an insider's perspective, for example, for my hometown, Taiyuan, the capital city of Shenxi Province, as a provincial capital, I think I would not even label Taiyuan as a tourism city.
It's not with more than 10, let's say, tourist destinations.
It is a good city to stay, but I'm not really sure if it's a good city to travel.
And I cannot really give a recommendation of okay, you can spend a three day tour here.
If any of you in the studio you're like me wish to visit, definitely I'd like to be a host.
But I think my question here is, as a local person, what can you recommend to tourists that you believe tourists can truly enjoy and appreciate?
Well, I think it'll depend on the pattern based on which we are promoting our tourism.
Whereas perhaps in the past is usually these provincial level or nationally well -known tourist spots that tend to invest in promotional videos that are aired on TV channels.
I mean, that tends to be the way people get information back in the days.
But now the pattern has changed and everybody can be a content provider on social media.
And it's through their unfilled lenses that people get a better perspective, a better idea about what they can get when they are traveling.
Whereas before we tend to be suspicious about these glamorous pictures that we see on TV, and we tend to believe that is my hometown really that attractive?
I mean, these glorified pictures are not always convincing.
But when you see them through very practical and also down to earth and unfilled lenses fielded by individual users, we know what we're looking for.
We know some of them can be rather modest, if not messy.
But you know what you're getting.
And also our expectation for our travel has changed.
Whereas before people might want to...
It's like a stamp collection process where there's a bucket list of places that you have to go and there's a bucket list of photos that you have to accumulate in your picture book.
But now people attach more importance to the kind of experience they seek.
If I'm traveling, if I were to recommend my own hometown, then I would definitely be honest to say that it's a very small township that masquerades as a county.
It's in fact a small township and is hidden in the rather remote and mountainous region of the country.
You don't see a lot.
There isn't fancy architecture to behold.
There isn't a unique culture to study.
There is! But you have a chance to cycle among the undulating hills, upwards and downwards and up and downhill.
And every few kilometers you see a village.
And it's small villages, real small villages that are hidden in the mountains.
And perhaps you have a chance to enter one of these households and see what kind of lives people are living.
For me, I really care about the room for me to imagine living a life there.
I oftentimes walk in the hutons of a city and look at the balconies or windows of what people have out there and maybe a flower, maybe some decorations and imagine myself living there.
And although we are a huge country, people are different, but we are also the same.
Is that contrast between similarity and difference that really mesmerizes me and the practice of imagining myself living somebody else's life?
That's the kind of experience that I value.
Yeah, that's very beautiful.
And if you are the kind of people who would like to enjoy a peaceful living experience or a traveling experience in a place that can allow you to let your imagination fly a little bit and imagine yourself living there as well, then definitely the recommendations from locals would be something you look
for when you're doing the travel plan.
But if you're the kind who enjoy extravagant, well, no, I think if you enjoy very specially designed activities, if you want to take part in the kind of local campaign or local events that's full of local characteristics, that's full of historical stories and cultural backgrounds.
And actually, these needs can also be met if you're looking at the kind of travel in this holiday.
Actually, for example, in Tianjin, it has been hosting a joint Intangible Cultural Heritage Exhibition with Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei focusing on the 24 solar terms and showcasing nearly 100 ICH, that's Intangible Cultural Heritage projects.
And we see that, for example, in Shenxi Province, my hometown, the Xiaoxi Tian Synoch area in Xixian, one of the filming locations for the popular game Black Myth, Wukong, will host national, provincial, and municipal level ICH projects to share traditional cultural stories.
And if we're going to Shanghai, it's hosting the 2024 Nan Xiang Guo Chao Festival under the theme, a basket of national trends and featuring a variety of activities like light and shadow old towns and fireworks and ICH, full of ICH kind of old towns.
So all these different activities are also there for you to choose.
Since you mentioned Tianjin, which is my hometown, and I would also want to recommend another activity for visitors who are coming to Tianjin during this holiday, you know, Tianjin is a coastal city next to Beijing, right?
And also in the city there are numerous rivers, big and small, spanning across the city and so that's why there are over 20 different bridges also spanning over this high river in Tianjin, so that's why in the city you can experience something called bridge side concerts in Tianjin.
So around each bridge there are like different concerts being held, especially during nights and they can be outdoor ones.
Yes, outdoor ones. They can be orchestra, picking opera and singing, group singing, and also some freestyle singing performance organized by local people and also officials.
So I think that would be a very pleasant feeling and experience for visitors to not only enjoying this beautiful performances but also got this chance to experience the life of local people because for local people in Tianjin to working alongside the High Hill River and also to enjoy different sceneries
including performances is a very important part of local people's life.
Definitely. We've been affected.
We are infected with the enthusiasm to introduce and recommend our whole hometown to travelers around the country.
Yes and if you are actually looking at a long trip, make sure you stay safe, make sure to read all the caution notice in each destination and make sure you enjoy it.
Whether it's your hometown or a place you've never been, every destination has its charm so why not explore wherever new well wherever new through the eyes of the locals and after all the best stories are the ones that hit close to home.
