The year 2024 is my 12th year in Jungar Banner, Ordos City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. It has become my daily routine to cook breakfast for my daughters, shoot short-form videos, and volunteer to tutor schoolchildren in English. With my family, friends, and career in Jungar, I live and work here in peace and contentment.
A family photo of Abdul Samad Khan. Photo courtesy of Khan Abdul Samad
I like a challenging job. Since last year, I have been obsessed with making short-form videos. After working with a shooting team in Jungar, the total number of my followers on popular Chinese video-sharing platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, and Channels on Weixin exceeded one million. In the past, I was known mostly by the people of Jungar. But now when I visit other cities out of Inner Mongolia, people recognize me on the street. I have fans all over China, which highlights the incredible reach of short-form online videos. I also realize why TikTok is so popular abroad.
Samad thinks about the content of a video in the snow field. Yu Xiangjun
My sole purpose for making short-form videos is to let more foreigners know about China. Many foreigners’ perception of China is still stuck in the 1960s and 1970s, so they have no idea about the current situation of China and the lives of Chinese people. Before I came to China, I also thought that China was not a very developed country. However, when I arrived in China, its modernization really surprised and shocked me, and also become an important reason for me to stay in China.
Later, I discovered short-form video, so I started to show my work and life in Jungar Banner on social media platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube, which brought me many fans and followers. With the viral nature of short-form video right now, if there is no high-quality content, it is very difficult to attract audiences. Not wanting to rely on shortcuts, I just show the everyday lives of the ordinary people in Jungar.
In addition to shooting videos, one of my most important jobs is to tutor students in English in the primary and secondary schools. As English is an international language, some places in China offer English classes to children from kindergarten, which has made English learning proliferate across the country. English is the official language and the primary educational language in Pakistan, which allows me to use my English language skills to help local children to strengthen their English learning. The first batch of students I taught a decade ago have entered high school right now, which gives me a feeling of having made a meaningful contribution as an English language teacher in Jungar.
Samad’s youngest daughter plays with a dog on the street. Yu Xiangjun
I met and fell in love with my wife Bian Fengmei when we studied in the U.K. I came to her hometown in Jungar in 2012, and we got married two years later. Over the past decade, three lovely daughters have come into our lives, bringing more joy to our family. On summer weekends, I would ride a motorcycle with my daughters around the countryside, teaching them about the crops and the history of the land. During winter vacation, I cook all kinds of food for them such as steamed buns, dumplings, and stewed noodles.
Some people may ask where I learned to cook from, but it is no secret that I learned it from my mother-in-law. When I first arrived in Jungar, I learned cooking with my mother-in-law in the kitchen every day. Later, I not only mastered my cooking skills, but also became fluent in the local dialect. As a result, I can speak Jungar dialect fluently now, with even more fluency than standard Chinese. My wife often jokes that I am destined to become a genuine local of Jungar.
Samad and his youngest daughter in a snowy field. Yu Xiangjun
As a foreign son-in-law of Jungar Banner, I am very proud to live and work here. As of 2023, Jungar Banner has been listed among the 100 counties with the strongest economy in China for 18 consecutive years. With Jungar’s rich coal resources, it has developed coal-based industries and explored industrial transformation and upgrading as well.
I often ask my daughters how coal can be transformed into material for clothes through advanced technological processing. After chemical processing, how coal can produce a variety of raw materials for products such as beverage bottles, tableware, eyeglass frames, and clothing? Through such questions, I pique their curiosity about the clean innovative utilization of coal to teach them about science, so as to let them know about the changes occurring in our city.
In 2024, while doing my day job, I also want to shoot more traditional culture and folk customs of Jungar Banner. I am confident that this kind of unique content will be popular among online audiences.
