I first heard of the Internet celebrity Li Ziqi 李子柒, a YouTuber and food blogger who has at least 20 million subscribers to her name from a colleague who is an ardent fan. Born in Sichuan, China and an orphan, Li Ziqi stays with her grandmother in rural Pingwu, Mianyang. She creates delightful videos of herself preparing traditional food using basic ingredients from her garden and the forests and makes handicrafts; furniture even; using traditional Chinese tools and techniques. She rarely speaks in her video but when she does, it would be a light banter with her grandmother. Her videos are dominated by the sound of soothing music, the sound of her working and sounds of nature. The last time I watched, Li Ziqi was making Chinese rice dumplings for the Dragon Boat Festival. Her rice dumplings look different from the one we made here in Malaysia. Food, I suppose isn't the only thing that evolves as Chinese move out of China and make their homes elsewhere. While in Malacca, the rice dumplings get a blue tinge from the bunga telang; the way the Chinese in Pontianak, Indonesia celebrate Dragon Boat Festival itself perhaps has gone through a total makeover. Called festival bak chang there; the Chinese in Pontianak gather and bathe at a river called Sungai Kapuas and there is a carnival-like atmosphere when men in boats throw bak chang or rice dumplings at each other during the big day! Chinese in Malaysia don't do that and I'm sure, Chinese from mainland China too.
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