Two days ago, a Xiaohongshu netizen met Li Ziqi himself at the March Street Market in Kunming.
Dressed in a tie-dye skirt with the characteristics of Dali, Yunnan, she was attracted by a stall of intangible cultural heritage handicrafts and stopped for a long time.
It can be seen that after bidding farewell to the camera for nearly a thousand days, she is still the same fairy spirit. And the traditional culture she loves has long been integrated into her life and has become her way of life.
For a long time, there has been very little news about Li Ziqi, and the real life dynamics are even more rare, and netizens have left messages to express their feelings of longing-
In this era of flowing water, Li Ziqi is a very special existence.
The update of the account is still stopped in 2021, but it has been frequently brought to the hot search in the past two years.
For example, recently, the entries of #Li Ziqi's response to return# and #Are you still waiting for Li Ziqi's update# rushed to the hot list, attracting the attention of tens of thousands of netizens.
In fact, the topic is misleading, and Li Ziqi himself did not show up to speak out.
During the period when video updates were paused, Li Ziqi rarely appeared, and his dynamics can only be glimpsed from the occasional information on the Internet.
Whether it is Li Ziqi in the lens back then, or Li Ziqi outside the lens today, one thing that can be determined is that
She's always been on the same path she originally wanted to take—
01
Ride the wind
Making a video was an unexpected decision.
In 2014, because his grandmother had a serious illness, Li Ziqi, who was working outside, decided to return to his hometown.
She just wanted to spend time with her grandmother and find something to do at home.
So there is "Pastoral Fairy Li Ziqi".
In her videos, we don't seem to find much purpose.
It is a distant friend who shares with you the life of the mountain village she is familiar with and cooks food.
Then I will show you the most attractive part of the traditional culture she loves.
"A Life of a Crop" series, which has been updated with more than two dozen videos, says, "I want the kids in the city to know where the food comes from."
The "Oriental Intangible Cultural Heritage" series presents several skills in a complete way, she said, "Intangible cultural heritage, it is like a dying old man, helpless and powerless, he needs to be seen by many people." ”
Some things are not done when they are meaningful, but they are done, and when they are done, they see their meaning.
02
Catch the wind
Of course, this road is not easy to follow.
During this period, Li Ziqi shouted to stop twice.
The first time was on May 13, 2017.
There are many so-called popular people, and there were many people who scolded her that year, saying that she was "fake shooting" and "showing". originally thought that the Qing would clear herself, but then the situation was so serious that it had affected her life.
That time, Li Ziqi posted a full eight long pictures and material videos taken back and forth by herself on Weibo, releasing all the evidence that could prove that the video was made by herself.
She said a lot of details, two or three seconds of footage, and the actual shooting can take two or three hours. As an outsider, I couldn't have imagined that there would be so many difficulties.
I also understand why it takes a long time for Li Ziqi to update a work.
(From Li Ziqi's Weibo)
"In this year, a total of 20,881 video footage was taken excluding mobile phone lenses. Just pressing the camera shooting button back and forth took an extra 260 kilometers. ”
If you've seen her videos, you won't be exaggerating.
Li Ziqi's lens traces the "source" of all things.
To tell a story, start with a seed.
Rice, taro, potatoes, pumpkin, roses...... She used 26 videos to record the cycle of life of 26 different crops, concretizing the wonderful power of nature and time.
We can see that she used the last round of harvest to make seeds, cultivated the land, carefully irrigated them, and then turned them into delicious food with a pair of skillful hands, or dried and pickled them for storage.
Li Ziqi called this romantic ritual "the life of so-and-so".
Any viewer with rural life experience can find a sense of familiarity from Li Ziqi's video.
Carrying the burden and carrying the basket, the knife falling up and down, chopping melons and vegetables, her every action reveals the spirit of a rural working people.
As a netizen said, "The understanding and familiarity with farm tools, the feel formed by years of hard work, as well as the injuries on the hands, the thick calluses on the palms, and the roughness of the knuckles, these are not fakes that can be faked." ”
Does what seems impossible have to be fake?
She said that love can last a long night.
(At 3 o'clock in the morning, Li Ziqi was cutting the video)
03
Against the wind
Another call to stop was on July 14, 2021.
After updating "Well Salt" as the end of her "Firewood, Rice, Oil, Salt, Sauce, Vinegar and Tea" series, no new works have been released.
At the peak of his career, he went to court with his partners, and would rather stop his account than fight against capital. If you look at it from the perspective of gains and losses, it is too crazy to look at it.
But if you look at it with Li Ziqi's value system, it doesn't seem to be difficult to understand.
In the short video business trend, "fast" is the first essence of survival. But what she wants to do, slow is a must.
The treasures precipitated by the Chinese millennium civilization, how can we give birth to a profound and profound understanding without experiencing it personally.
Therefore, in order to present the intangible cultural heritage skills of Shu embroidery, Li Ziqi specially went to consult the Shu embroidery master Meng Dezhi (one of the only two national intangible cultural heritage inheritors of Shu embroidery in China).
Starting from dyeing cloth, then to drafting, stretching, feeding, wiring, and embroidery.
Learn 12 categories, more than 130 sub-categories of stitching, and learn that a thread can be split into more than 60 wires.
Finally, it took more than a year to complete a delicate and gorgeous Shu embroidered blue dress.
It is obvious that Li Ziqi is carrying forward the traditional Chinese intangible cultural heritage skills with the heart of a craftsman.
There are also intangible cultural heritage videos such as the Four Treasures of Study, Papermaking, and Movable Type Printing, which are also widely circulated overseas.
Although there are no foreign subtitles, it does not affect audiences from different cultural backgrounds to experience the charm of Chinese culture. The comment area is full of exclamations from foreigners.
On Youtube, almost every video of Li Ziqi has more than 5 million views.
In 2021, Li Ziqi broke the Guinness World Record for "the most subscribed Youtube Chinese channel" set by her.
Li Ziqi has broken her own record, and the Chinese culture conveyed by her videos is also going further.
04
Wait for the wind to come
In the era of traffic, the average length of time a blogger can survive is only six months. But this law not only failed in Li Ziqi, but even went the other way.
So far, Li Ziqi still has more than 100 million fans on the domestic platform, and it is even more outrageous on the overseas YouTube platform, with the number of fan subscriptions increasing from 15 million to 18.5 million.
The number of video views from two years ago is still rising, and the comment section is full of "miss you".
We miss Li Ziqi, what do we miss?
It is to repair the fence and plant chrysanthemums, plant flowers and grasses, taste tea and listen to the rain, warm wine and enjoy the snow.
It is the pastoral courtyard that is gradually distancing itself from modern society, blocking the chaos of the world and full of joy in the world.
It is spring ploughing and summer planting, autumn harvest and winter storage, three meals at three times, and four seasons.
It is a way of life that is bound to the seasons of the solar terms, and it follows the most primitive laws and lives in peace and tranquility.
CCTV once commented on Li Ziqi:
"You can't become Li Ziqi without love, and you can't understand Li Ziqi without love.
Foreigners understand Li Ziqi's love, and also explain why many of Li Ziqi's works are still popular all over the world without translation. There is not a single word to praise China as good, but she has told Chinese culture and Chinese stories well. ”
Li Ziqi's video is like a poem in modern society, a dream of people in reality when they are awake-
Live in the fireworks of the world, not the hustle and bustle of the city.
Allow to be slow, allow to be ordinary, allow to feel life, allow to do something that wastes time but makes you happy.
In her idyll, we can always temporarily rest our weary souls.
Whether it is recording the charm of nature or spreading traditional culture, it is Li Ziqi's love in his heart.
And facts have also proved that in the eyes of the audience, Li Ziqi is not only a popular healing blogger, but also represents a cultural symbol.
Gather a group of people who don't know each other or even speak the same language, and seriously feel the deep and unique charm of a field and a country.
The winds of the times never ceased.
But there are some people who always seem to be able to catch up with every era.