The first time I heard of Ziqi Li was from my coworker, an Indonesian Chinese, whose Chinese is so limited that she always consults me regarding the Chinese characters, movies or TV series. When she approached me the other day with Ziqi Li’s name, I thought it is just another actor/actress or singer she has a penchant for. The googling of Ziqi’s name returned with some of her pictures and information that I was not familiar with, making me think that she is just one of many cooks who introduces home style cooking on Youtube.
The name resurfaced lately when my husband started watching Ziqi’s videos on Youtube. Each single video she posted there boasted millions of hits and followers. Like many binge watchers, we whiled away our nights with her videos. What draws me to the screen is not her cooking, but the beautiful scenery in a remote backwater in Sichuan. I felt like being transported to the place where white clouds afloat above the misty valleys, and where pink lotus flowers abloom on the green ponds. What Ziqi lives in with her grandma is a home that is environed by an expanse of gardened vegetables, fruits and flowers, in the company of pet dogs, chickens, sheep, geese and pigs. It is against this idyllic setting that most videos are shot.
I don’t know what is roused in the hearts of millions of viewers. Stirring inside me is a longing to escape from the bustling city and to return to nature, where people are self-sufficient in a leisure environment. By sweat, people can harvest from the land what they sow and desire. Food is brought to table freshly off the field, the sumptuousness of which leaves them with more than they can eat. In Ziqi’s case, she pickles extra vegetables or meat for off-seasons and for different flavors. Flowers or fruits are dried and fermented into flower teas or wines. Life in winter could be just as extravagant with those in store. Though her cooking style, basically Sichuan cuisine, with lots of oil and hot chilies, is not to my liking, her aesthetic arrangements of food and the casting background are ingenious and provoking.
Ziqi is legendary. As a school dropout at age 14, she left her hometown to seek a better life in a big city. But it is back to the secluded home that she found her place and niche. In addition to being a cook, she embroiders. With cloth, wools or cocoons, she deftly hand-makes shoes, sweaters or quilts. As the only offspring or labor living with the old grandma, she toils in the field and does everything from plowing to harvesting. Surprisingly she knows how to make furniture, turning fresh green bamboos or logs to a tea table or a sink stand, with only the help of a few simple tools like a cutter, a manual saw, a screw and a ruler. And from the scratch, she mixed sand, soil and straws, used bricks into building a two-layered oven in which bread, chickens are baked by glaring woods.
Because of these videos, Ziqi becomes well-known locally and globally. What she presents to the world is not just her skills or a scene in southwestern China, but a lifestyle that evokes people’s aspirations and dreams.
