'Sanxi Grandpa' is rural viral sensation

Short videos about the life of a 65-year-old man nicknamed "Sanxi Grandpa", who lives in Yongdeng county in Northwest China's Gansu province, went viral recently on Douyin, a short-video platform known in the West as TikTok.

The videos show rural sites, including the corn fields and the yard where Sanxi Grandpa lives and the typical Gobi landscape of Northwest China. In some videos, he turns into a Chinese swordsman standing in front of a Gobi landscape from the images of a farmer working on a corn field with a farm tool on his shoulder.

The videos also chronicle his happy life spent with his grandchildren.

"With these videos, I want to show viewers the great changes in the northwest of China," said Zhang Jianzong, Sanxi Grandpa's son.

"There are still a lot of people who view Northwest China as a poor and underdeveloped place where there is only desert. But actually we now have clear waters and green mountains," Zhang said.

In the videos, large wheat and corn fields and yards bursting with vegetables and fruits are common scenes.

Zhong Wei contributed to the story

Video by Zhang Yong