Two Filmmakers Document 1,100 Rural Chinese Villages

After years of chasing success in Chinese cities, Zhao Yushun and Yuan Zhenzhen found themselves feeling like invisible cogs in a machine, moving between media jobs without ever feeling settled. Then they made a surprising choice: they quit everything to document the rural communities they'd once tried so hard to leave behind.

Since 2021, the couple has traveled through more than 1,100 villages and towns across China. They film roadside conversations with farmers, turning chance encounters into short documentaries that capture a vanishing way of life.

Both grew up as "left-behind children," raised by relatives while their parents worked in cities. Everyone told Zhao his hands "were meant to hold a pen, not a hoe." They both made it to university and landed urban jobs, but success felt hollow.

Their breakthrough came during a drive through Shaanxi province when they spotted a farmer sorting pears by the roadside. He told them about growing jujubes since childhood, working years in Shenzhen's factories, then returning home to care for aging parents and struggling with falling crop prices.

That thirty-minute conversation became the closing scene of their Yellow River documentary series. Their account, "Encountering Reality," now has over 530,000 followers on Bilibili, one of China's largest video platforms.

The Ripple Effect

The response has been overwhelming. Viewers leave comments hundreds of words long, sharing their own family stories of leaving rural areas to find work in cities.

One agricultural student wrote that after watching drought destroy an experimental crop, they finally understood why their parents had left farming. A viewer from Hunan described the universal path of their community: "We all ended up taking the same path: leaving home to find work."

Most people Zhao and Yuan film are farmers in their 60s or older who spent decades as migrant workers before being aged out of urban jobs. They returned to farm through falling crop prices, extreme weather, and the departure of younger generations.

For Zhao, the work finally feels meaningful. "These are things I genuinely care about," he said. "I finally felt grounded."

After spending their childhoods studying to escape the countryside, they're now racing to preserve its stories before they fade completely.