CHENGDU, China, Oct. 08, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- "HELLOChengdu", "Chengdu Plus", a group of social media accounts aiming to showcase images of the southwestern Chinese city Chengdu, have attracted the largest number of followers compared to the social media accounts of its peer major Chinese cities since 2019, announced Chengdu City Media Group this week. This is mostly due to the compelling short videos posted on the social media accounts that showcase the city's cultural symbols.
British writer Fuchsia Dunlop swore to try all the delicacies of China within one year, but she found herself still hanging around three years later in Chengdu, capital city of Sichuan, and published a book "Food of Sichuan" in 2020. Fuchsia is not the only foreigner who stayed in Chengdu because of their love for the local cuisine, according to "Chengdu, a Unique Way of Living", a series of short videos produced by the media organizations of Chengdu.
In the three-episode short video series, for gourmets like Fuchsia and Jordan Porter, a city explorer from Canada, eating is the fastest and easiest way to understand Chengdu. For other foreigners like American anthropologist Rowan Flad, French director Laetitia Colombani, and Japanese Architect Kiyoshi Sey Takeyama, they are attracted by many other cultural symbols and marks of the city.
Among them are Dujiangyan, the world's oldest and only irrigation system that is still functioning without a dam; Jinsha Site Museum, with historical remains traced back to 3,200 years ago; and also the "living fossil" Giant Pandas.
With the advent of an era when video clips have become an important carrier to convey a city's image, Chengdu, one of the most rapidly developing cities in China, seized the opportunity. Starting in 2019, it has made efforts to produce a series of video clips "Chengdu, a Unique Way of Living", to showcase the city's most representative cultural symbols, which resulted in a global wave of "virtual wandering" of Chengdu, and over 100 million internet hits.
The short video series depicted the 2,300-year-old city from three perspectives: the history and culture of "land of abundance," whose first human settlement could be traced back to 4,500 years ago; the harmonious ecology of the "land of pandas"; and the "city of food and foodies".
Taking the ancient Sichuan culture as its backdrop, combined with the modern trend of creativity, "Chengdu, a Unique Way of Living" showed how foreigners view the city, and their enviable living experience in the city with "Ba Shi" (super fantastic) style, from the perspectives and through oral narrations of anthropologists, writers, movie directors, and architects from the United States, Britain, France, Japan, South Korea, Canada and other countries.
In 2020, the "HELLOChengdu" account, which intended to showcase the image of Chengdu city, ranked first regarding followers among Chinese major city Instagram accounts, and the "Chengdu Plus" account occupied the leading position of subscribers and influence on the YouTube platform among all major cities in China. "Chengdu, a Unique Way of Living" has taken global attention immediately after being launched.
Since 2019, Chengdu has released city promotion videos tailored for different countries and in various languages, among them were "How to make a person stay in Chengdu?" in Korean, "Chengdu, a Unique Way of Living" in English, "Handbook of Business Trip to Chengdu" in Japanese, as well as Chengdu 2021 FISU World University Games promotional short video series in English.
Chengdu ranked first for three times in "China's Best Performing Cities Index" report released by the Milken Institute of the United States. China's well-known news weekly "Oriental Outlook" has selected Chengdu as "China's Happiest City" for 12 consecutive years.
Huang Chuxin, secretary-general and researcher of the New Media Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, attributed Chengdu's success to its ability to cultivate local resources, study the preferences and interests of overseas audiences, and make good use of city cultural symbols.
As social media has become the main carrier to convey information globally, more Chinese cities have tried to use social media and short videos in an effort to gain a place in the fierce global city image competition. 51 cities of China's top 100 cities have opened a total of 293 social media accounts. Chengdu, Xiamen or Shanghai each has more than five official social media accounts, according to "2020 China's Top 100 Cities Overseas Communication Influence Index Report".
Contact person: Sasa Guan
Email: tongguan@xinhuanetus.com
Tel:1-330-780-6068
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