Chinese official endures harsh cold to promote her hometown

An official of Tahe county, Heilongjiang province, drew the attention of Chinese netizens recently when a short video starring her began circulating the internet, China Youth Daily reported on Wednesday.

To promote the tourism industry of her hometown, Du Bo, the 44-year-old director of the culture and tourism bureau, shot videos of herself walking outside in the harsh winter cold wearing ethnic clothing.

In the video, Du can be seen walking through a birch tree forest while wearing an elegant white dress. She is also wearing a headpiece decorated with deer antlers designed to make her look like a "white deer fairy".

"At that time, the temperature was lower than minus 20 degrees Celsius. We only had one afternoon and there was no time to find professional cameras or makeup crews," said Du.

"Once the sun set, it would be too late, so the whole shooting was done in a hurry."

Du recalled that by the end of the whole endeavor, both of her arms were already going numb due to the searing cold.

"After the video shoot, I drank two whole pots of boiled ginger soup to warm up,"said Du.

Raising many people's interest in the local fashion and sceneries, the video racked up millions of views on short-video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou.

"The cloth used in the video is a high-quality dress designed with Orogen ethnic elements. We thought we should let more people see the beauty of Orogen dresses, so we made the video," said Du.

Despite the video's success, there were also those who questioned her motives of making such a video, calling her out on attention seeking and using government expense to promote her personal image.

However, these accusations were short-lived, as it was soon made clear that the dress was borrowed from the designer while all recording and post processing were done by Du and her co-workers with no government expense involved.

Du also explained why she was casted in the video, stating that video platforms prefer to promote videos containing people on their front pages and not videos containing only scenery.

Located in the northernmost and coldest area in the Greater Khingan Mountains, Tahe is China's northernmost border county with an average winter outdoor temperature of between minus six to 20 C.

The freezing cold of Du's home never discouraged her from appreciating its beauty and served only to fuel her passion in sharing its sceneries and culture to wider audiences.

"I really wish there were 50 hours in a day so that I can promote Tahe county more using new media. I want more people to know that the Greater Khingan Mountains is a place worth exploring and I want to speak for my hometown,"said Du.

At present, Du and her team's video channels have more than 800,000 followers and over 900 million views across over 200 videos.