Reviving classic stories for a new generation

"The stories in our childhood textbooks are the lives we live as adults." This realization inspired Li Yuan to create the video account Laikansuba (meaning "Read Along"), where she and her team share a series of short films that reinterpret classic literary works from Chinese textbooks.

Li, 26, a digital media graduate from Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, is the team's director. The idea first came to her during a family trip last year to send her younger brother off to college. At the university, she noticed many parents from out of town doing the same — watching their children take a big step into adulthood.

This scene reminded Li of Beiying (The View of Father's Back), an essay from her middle school Chinese textbook.

Written in 1925 by Zhu Ziqing (1898-1948), the piece recounts the author's departure for Peking University. What lingered most in his memory was the image of his aging father's back as the old man climbed up and down the train station platform to buy him oranges.

"It was amazing to see how real life connected with something I had read in a textbook," Li said.

This moment of inspiration quickly became Laikansuba's first short film, in which Li reimagined the protagonist as a girl, reflecting on her own relationship with her father.

"The core idea, however, remains the same — Chinese fathers tend to be reserved and don't always express their love openly," she explained.

The video struck a chord with young audiences, garnering over 80 million views across Chinese social media platforms.

Encouraged by this success, the team launched an ongoing series that offers fresh interpretations of classic stories from school textbooks.

Primarily shared on Douyin, Kuaishou, Xiaohongshu (RedNote), and Bilibili, the series has attracted over 2.5 million followers in less than a year, with most viewers aged 18 to 23.

All the young protagonists in these stories are portrayed by 26-year-old Shu Jiahui. Although Shu graduated with a degree in software engineering from Yibin University in Sichuan and has no formal acting training, she developed a passion for acting through internships and personal exploration.

"When I get a script, I research similar characters and imagine how I would react in those situations," Shu explained.

It was this raw, unpolished quality that caught Li's attention. She found that many trained young actors tended to deliver rehearsed and predictable performances, lacking the authenticity she was looking for.