Last year's net gains

Fairy tales

Seven Dong women from Gaibao village in the Qiandongnan Miao and Dong autonomous prefecture in Guizhou province became online sensations after promoting their ethnic culture and agricultural products via livestreaming and short videos.

Their media work reportedly yielded a profit of at least 1 million yuan ($145,000) for the village.

Wu Yusheng, Party secretary of Gaibao village, suggested the idea in 2018, in a bid to connect the remote village with the outside world.

"The culture of the Dong ethnic group is well preserved here. I found all these online video platforms could publicize us very well at a very low cost," says Wu, who then organized a group of young women to open a channel titled Seven Dong Fairies on Kuaishou.

Wearing traditional garments of the ethnic group, these Dong women showed how to fish in the river, design embroidery, make a type of sticky rice cake called ciba, and other details of a Dong villager's life, all of which helped earn more than 300,000 followers on the platform and attract attention from mainstream media.

The beautiful scenery of Gaibao village, with green mountains, clear water, and traditional Dong-style stilted architecture, is also displayed in the videos, attracting many tourists to travel to the area for a taste of its unique culture.