From the “zipline girl” to the ex-thief with a catchphrase, here’s what happened to the ordinary people who became overnight sensations in the last 30 years
When Yu Yanqia got her first job offer, there were slightly more news cameras watching than for most fresh college graduates this summer. That’s because the 22-year-old from Yunnan province, who is due to begin working as a doctor in her home prefecture of Nujiang this month, had become one of the icons of China’s poverty alleviation and rural education campaigns 15 years ago, known all over China as “Zipline Girl.”
In 2007, a crew from Jiangsu TV captured footage of the then 6-year-old Yu, who is of the Lisu ethnicity, going to school in an unusual and dangerous way—by strapping herself to a rope cable and gliding high above the Nujiang River, even pulling herself over the raging currents when momentum wouldn’t carry her all the way across. This was the quickest way to leave Yu’s mountain village, and Yu and her sister made the journey to school once a week, carrying the wheels and straps for the zipline in their backpacks. After the TV segment aired, the remote area received donations to build three bridges across the river, and Yu’s admittance to university in 2018, as well as her graduation this August, were hailed as proof that hard work and investment in rural education can pay off.
Over the decades, TV, print media, and social media have made various ordinary people in China into overnight sensations, but their notoriety usually faded as quickly as it began. Here are a few individuals whose photos or stories shocked and moved people across China, and what happened to them following their rise to fame:
Hatty Liu is the former managing editor of The World of Chinese, and an award-winning communications researcher. Born in China, and raised in China, Canada, and the US, she leverages her cross-cultural identity to create more empathetic knowledge across national boundaries.
