The countryside, as a distinct cultural and geographical space, boasts profound historical heritage and abundant narrative resources. Telling China’s rural stories well is therefore essential for deeply exploring the cultural connotations of rural life and accelerating the development of Chinese discourse and narrative systems. Strengthening these foundations, in turn, enhances the effectiveness of international communication, enabling global audiences to witness and better understand the historic transformations unfolding in the countryside.

In recent years, with the rapid expansion of the internet and the flourishing of online media, rural areas have attracted growing attention and visibility. At the same time, rural content creators, leveraging platforms such as TikTok and YouTube, are increasingly bringing rural China into the global communication landscape.

Value of international communication

The countryside serves as an important window through which the international community observes and understands China. As a subsystem of the national image, rural representation forms an essential component of China’s overall image. It enriches the layers and connotations of national representation at a micro level, helping present a more truthful, multidimensional, and comprehensive China to global audiences.

With a population of approximately 500 million people, accounting for 36.11% of the national total, rural areas are an integral component of China’s stories. Over more than 5,000 years of continuous civilization, the Chinese nation has cultivated a rich and diverse cultural heritage. Idyllic landscapes, natural scenery, traditional crafts, regionally distinctive customs, and cultural resources such as cuisine and clothing rooted in rural society provide a continuous stream of narrative material.

The immense tangible and intangible value embedded in rural China also underscores the central role of rural modernization in the country’s broader modernization drive. Since the founding of the PRC, the CPC has led the Chinese people in pioneering rural practices on the path to modernization. These efforts demonstrate the effectiveness of China’s rural development model while providing a wealth of vivid material for telling China’s stories.

International communication is not merely a process of information exchange, but also one of emotional interaction and resonance. Elements of rural life—such as cultural events, farming techniques, and local cuisine—serve as tangible carriers of nostalgia, evoking emotional attachment to one’s homeland.

In recent years, short-video creators focusing on rural daily life have gained popularity on overseas social media platforms such as YouTube. The sense of nostalgia expressed in their content resonates with international audiences longing for their roots, becoming an emotional bridge that transcends cultural differences and connects people across nations. This cross-cultural appeal has sparked widespread emotional resonance among audiences from different countries.

Narrative recommendations

To tell China’s rural stories well, it is essential to foreground their rural character. In the spatial dimension, rural identity is defined by locality. China’s vast territory and diverse ethnic groups, along with differences in geographical environments, historical traditions, and ways of life and production, have shaped the richness and diversity of rural culture. Examples include errenzhuan, a two-person musical folk performance popular in northeast China, the “waist drum” dance of northern Shaanxi Province, the local operas of Sichuan Province and Chongqing Municipality, as well as distinctive regional cuisines, clothing, and festival cultures.

Along the temporal dimension, rural character is shaped by seasonality, most clearly reflected in the traditional 24 Solar Terms. These cultural resources, embodying Chinese characteristics, spirit, and wisdom, provide an inexhaustible source of material for telling rural stories and require systematic exploration and organization.

To tell China’s rural stories well, emphasis should also be placed on their people-centered nature. Farmers are participants, witnesses, and beneficiaries of rural development in China. They also serve as conduits connecting rural areas with the outside world, representing a force that cannot be overlooked in international communication. Compared with official narratives, rural stories told from an individual perspective—characterized by personal experience and creative freedom—are more relatable to international audiences. Such narratives are perceived as more authentic and credible, making emotional resonance with overseas audiences easier to achieve. Empowering farmers to take initiative, unleash creativity, and engage actively is therefore a prerequisite for telling rural stories effectively.

To tell China’s rural stories well, their contemporary relevance should also be highlighted. China’s agricultural civilization, spanning thousands of years, has shaped the distinctive spiritual character of rural culture and serves as the “roots” and “soul” of the Chinese nation. In today’s rural regions, agricultural civilization and modern civilization coexist, each carrying equal weight in rural narratives. Telling rural stories well requires emphasizing their organic integration. It is essential to explore the outstanding elements of agricultural civilization, endow them with contemporary significance, and vividly showcase the modernized countryside under the rural revitalization strategy.

Yu Qingchu is a distinguished professor at Guizhou University. Tang Juan is an associate professor from the School of Communication at Guizhou University.