Ruan recording a short video for her channel on video-sharing apps Kuaishou and Douyin – China’s version of TikTok – in a park in Beijing. China is getting old fast and Beijing is faced with the monumental challenge of how to provide for tens of millions of retirees, but it has also opened opportunities for those who are financially comfortable in their dotage and able to harness the commercial possibilities of technology. — AFP
BEIJING: Exquisitely garbed in a traditional cheongsam dress, 76-year-old Sang Xiuzhu is one of an unlikely vanguard of elderly influencers storming Chinese social media with videos of glamour in the golden years.
Two years ago she joined the “Fashion Grandmas”, whose one-minute clips and livestreams of them turning Beijing’s streets into a catwalk are devoured by millions of fans.
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Ruan recording a short video for her channel on video-sharing apps Kuaishou and Douyin – China’s version of TikTok – in a park in Beijing. China is getting old fast and Beijing is faced with the monumental challenge of how to provide for tens of millions of retirees, but it has also opened opportunities for those who are financially comfortable in their dotage and able to harness the commercial possibilities of technology. — AFP
Ruan (right) with assistant Xie Xincun as they check a short video for her channel on video-sharing apps Kuaishou and Douyin – China’s version of TikTok – in Beijing. — AFP
Ruan, 58, has her own video channel and uses an iPhone to reach over six million fans as she tours Beijing’s history and culture. — AFP
Ruan changing into traditional clothes in a park in Beijing before recording a short video for her channel on video sharing apps Kuaishou and Douyin, China’s version of TikTok. — AFP
Ruan and her assistant Xie Xincun (left) editing a clip for her channel on video-sharing apps Kuaishou and Douyin at a company which helps run her channel in Beijing. — AFP
Ruan jokes that she fell into the world of video-streaming to avoid becoming a ‘nagging’ presence stuck at home, but she also carries a message on the virtues of age from a golden generation refusing to be pushed into the background of modern China. — AFP
