China's most ethnically diverse region. I got teary eyes :( 

Love your contents... As an overseas Chinese, this overwhelms me with so much pride. The diversity of our heritage is just so vast, even with modernity we still embraces traditions.

Siming, you don't know how much this videos means to a lot of people like me who are't from China but are fascinated by it's culture and history. Thank you!

Few people introduce the ethnic minorities living in the mountains of China to foreign countries. Even the Chinese people living in China know very little about these ethnic minorities. They live in a difficult environment, but they are always so hardworking and happy. ,thank you for your sharing!

🎉🎉 As a 4th generation overseas Chinese, seeing China's today & looking forward of its future makes me happy＆ proud. How I wish my grandparents were still around to witness the development and progress in China. Thanks for the videos. Please produce more to show the world, especially overseas Chinese, how their motherland is progressing, to know more about the culture & history of China. The ways western politicians & mainstream media demonizing china are so disgusting but their actions exposed their hypocrisy, racism & ugliness. 身為第四代海外華人，看到今天和未來的中國讓我/海外華人感動，感到驕傲，如果我的祖先還在他們一定感到快樂／驕傲, 謝謝你的視頻讓大家看到了解中國的發展和歷史文化，我們所接觸到西方政客和媒體，他們的中國報道和偏見太可惡了, 也讓世界看到他們的雙重標準和種族主義。🎉🎉

One word for china “magnificent”

You know you are such an intelligent girl. I love your commentary, specially the part , where you said, the old chinese proverb of " better to travel 10000 miles than to read 10000 books!

Amazing video. Pictures speaks louder than words. No need to defend China with the amazing culture and beauty. The villages are very clean and people are happy. A result of a great government. The heart warming song speaks for all Asian culture of great respect for our parents.

Dear Siming. I am visiting China for the fifth time. Today I am in Xiamen. What a beautiful city and people. But the reason I am writing you is not about Xiamen but is to tell you that you just made me cry. I don’t know why but I am crying with you. One place I have heard so much but not been to is Yunnan. Hopefully I will be able to visit Yunnan and Xinjiang next summer. Keep up the good work. Thank you.

9:03 - Four kilos of tangerines for ten yuan - That's about $2 Canadian, or 23 cents a pound. We haven't seen a price like that on oranges for about 40 years!

Thank you for showing the western audience the love and diversity of China, we unfortunately have never or will never be shown all of this if not for people like you. Thank you for breaking the narrative!

This travelogue format is at least as fascinating as your episodes featuring intellectual analysis. The spectacular scenery, along with the perspectives on the daily lives of the locals, provides a wonderful look into the real heart of China.

This is a much more interesting and fascinating intellectual quest, Siming Lan! The irrigation system of the terraced fields is brilliant! The people are so kind and generous. Your new approach is also brilliant. We all have so much to learn from each other! The nation state somtimes obscures the olden ways and peoples it was made from, the old ways of living and being. We have much to learn from the past, too. Thank you, Siming Lan!

I found myself teary eyed watching you sharing your life experiences

16:58 Don't ever lose your heritage. It is part of the broader national cultural tapestry. Wow, the terraced landscape,😊 with two hens in the foreground, is so beautiful!

Reminds me of the nice C-drama... 'Meet Yourself' ❤ which was filmed in Yunnan 🥰

Thanks! 😊 Awesome episode !

Beautiful culture of Yunnan mountains Hani people there colorful clothing, fresh whole food, singing, music, smoking peace pipes and drinking... thanks for Nature beauty of China!

Thanks!

Full respect to Jianzhou!!!!!!!!!! And thank you for your in depth interaction with indigineous people ard the country!!! Yes, the love of people is the most touching thing , even more so than the breathtaking scenary!!

I've learned so much about CHINA 🇨🇳, I've studied in western university (Dartmouth, Sanford, and MIT) biology physics, paleontology .3 PHD'S...! China has returned to the nation on Earth 🇨🇳 AGAIN 🇨🇳👍🇨🇳💪🇨🇳👏❤🇨🇳

it's so touched. I am also crying when hearing the hani song as a daughter and as a mother of 3 kids.

Probably the best and most well-articulated "travel" video I have seen. Certainly intensified my desire to visit China. Thank you so much.

Such a heartwarming window into this community. It made me smile multiple times. Thank you for recording, editing, and sharing this.

U r one of the most beautiful You Tuber l had come across. Your English is flawless n most importantly very clear. Many thanks for your beautiful videos. ❤❤❤❤❤👍👍👍👍👍 From Malaysia with love.

Understanding a bit about the political and financial strains that China is currently experiencing it is always good to remind people of China's rich heritage, and this was beautifully done! Important for each of us, regardless of our heritage, to remind ourselves often of where we came from! Thanks for this, Siming!

Thank you for another sensitive insight to rural China. Breathtaking!

I absolutely love this video!!! Well Done!!!! It's good to get acquainted with all Chinese people. There is a lot to learn from them.

Katherine’s journey east and your channel are the two best channels in understanding China.

I love this channel so much. I also got teary eyes watching.

Siming, thanks so much for showing us such a beautiful side of China. Keep up your good work 。

The reason I know so much about China is.., 😅 I've had very close relationships with people who moved to USA from China, very well-off Chinese who have always lived in China, Chinese who are comfortable but not well-off, and also very poor Chinese people with very little. Their opinions about China are very different, and it's a complicated subject because things are changing so fast in China. Being white and from USA, I was often the butt of many a Chinese street vendor joke I didn't understand. Often times people would approach me and try to start conversations. But I mostly agree with the way your Grandfather explained China through his experience. To know what China was before the revolution, and to see how far it has progressed since is an amazing rise. As with many other countries, China had to free itself from the USA to lift its people up. Gain its sovereignty. Even if progress seemed slow sometimes.

Siming, you make the best content about China that I know of!

Gotta admit I thoroughly enjoy your video, its refreshing gaining a different perspective and seeing the world through someone else's eyes.

12:03 - The whole video is absolutely wonderful, but I think the introduction (and translation) from you with the passionate singing are my favourite parts!😊

Though I do enjoy learning about the politics of China it was a very nice change of pace to see a video about the daily lives of regular people there! You seemed to also have had a good time with it so I would love see more videos like this in the future!

Such an overwhelmingly touching and beautiful video on a unique Chinese culture I'd probably never experience otherwise.. atleast not for a while that is-- thank you.

Finally, you are in Yunnan- really wanted you to visit and vlog. Thank you!

Glad to see you again 😊❤

It's so good to see these new contents. A fellow admirer from Nepal ❤🇳🇵 Also somehow I as well got teary eyed with her and had a different sense of connection with these people.😅😭

Thank you for this amazing video Siming! As one of the Chinese diaspora, you are helping me reconnect with my culture

Marvelous.... China benefits so much from your journalism. I would know nothing about China, but for your videos... thank you!

Not only like your videos and music, but also your content…Look at China impartially with eyes without filters, I will always support you and wish you all the best ❤

This video reminds my own home town Shanxi. It reminds me of how kind the people at home, and how pure is the everything there. Thank you! keep up making those good China videos, and show us those beautiful places in China.

Beautiful video. Thanks for sharing your feelings more vulnerably. So brilliantly talented, yet so humble? What a pleasure to live inside such a mind. Why not be 💯% comfortable with yourself along a magical journey🌱 I'm really happy to see China thriving, the next leader of the world, and we do want the spirit of kindness to win. I still hope 95-year-old Zhu Rongji would share all his insights with you🌏

Yay! A new video 🎥🍿谢谢你啊Siming 🙏🏻🤩

Siming, you are such a deep thinker, you can't switch off. So much talent in one person. Thank you for showing us parts of China many Chinese know little of.

a good heart echoes with a good heart, that's why you can find the kindess of the people and moved by their kindess

Thanks for showing us the results of your "probing curiosity"! Perhaps next you could expend that curiosity on the ethnic Korean and Russian minorities in China?

As an American, I am so grateful for your content. China is such an overwhelmingly impressive country and deserves to be celebrated. 祝 你 好 运！

"The Mountain is high & the Emperor is far away". What a Classic saying!!!

Thanks for sharing, I like your videos and your naratives.

This is so spiritual! I felt this on my bones! Long live the diverse Chinese people and culture! Long live China!

Your content is as good as any documentary shot by a TV network. Bravo Siming.

Yes, it does feel like love. When you're there with nature, you open your heart and let the feeling arise, no commentaries and no judgement, just pure experience. Thanks for the trip, thanks for the video.

There are lots of things make me cry: music, pain, my kids (and they're adults!) and reading back on something I've written years ago. But most of all, I've cried at the places around the world I have found myself in - the vastness and beauty of the Himalayas, Alaska, Patagonia, the Rain Forests of Africa and Borneo and, on occasion, a flower growing in my jungle of a garden.

I travel for work in the United States. I love meeting new people and enjoying the country side. I hope that some day I get the chance to visit your country. It is so beautiful there.

Awesome video! The drone shots were stunning! Aren't you happy that you came to the awakening moment when you finally found out what captured your heart? It did mine 😱 Having come across videos like this, I broke free from the outrageous lies told by the corporate media in the West. I look forward to being enlightened by more videos from you.

Siming, I enjoyed many of your previous videos because they gave me nostalgia -- I shared your cultural and ideological struggles growing up. This one, though, is China's Peter Santenello in the making, a rite of passage if I may. Keep up the good work!

Watching from Bangladesh. Very informative topics about China. I learned many things from you. Thanks from my heart cordially.

@12:08 What a beautiful moving song - it moved me to tears....

Siming, you are so funny trying to talk to the buffalo 🤣🤣🤣

That was a beautiful experience. Love it. Please keep up the great work. 👏🥰

Thank you kindly for yet another lovely and very interesting video. What a wonderful way to be introduced to the marvels of China. Love the personal touch and hope that you keep it coming. It's inspiring. Also, I sincerely hope you don't abandon the socio-political-philosophical aspects of your personality. Because they are fascinating (as well) Keep up the good work!

Thanks for taking me on your tour n inter-action w/ the local peoples. 👍👍👍👏👏👏❤️

Greetings, fantastic to discover the cultural wealth of the great vast China.

First time visiting your channel and felt emotional! Thank you for showing us this side of China to all those outsiders, including myself. The irrigation system blew my mind! Superb video! Great articulation, video editing, everything is perfect!

The textiles are so beautiful! They resemble the traditional costumes of some of the people in Himachal Pradesh 😊 The song of the children to their mother was also very beautiful 😊 I hope the people will have more prosperity and self-dependence 🙏

I have to give you a thumb up. I felt these folks are living in total harmony with nature. Thank you for your effort in making such a great video.

I lived in China and traveled to Yunnan, but didn't know about the Hani people and Honghe. Great video and thanks for the great insights! And yes, totally agree: people are so kind not because they're poor, but because they're simply warm-hearted and it's their culture. I believe it's also the collective culture that makes people be kind to each other and emphasize what you have in common even with a complete stranger.

Siming, you will always be young if you travel so much with love in your heart.

There's no words to express how happy I am to know you went to my mom's province 🥹 Yunnan is quite a popular travel destination to chinese tourists but is still a bit unknown to foreigners and I'm so thrilled you decided to put the spotlight on this magnificent province ❤

So glad to see another of your wonderfully candid video essays. Thank you ❤

Very well made video. Beautiful mountains, beautiful water, beautiful people

Great episode…you have found your passion and path! I am so happy that you could show us such beautiful people of China and such beautiful scenery! 👍👍👍

Interesting and beautiful.Thanks Siming. John Lampe,Perth,Western Australia.

You're amazing. And so is your country.

Really enjoy your videos. That you showed emotion in the face of beauty of the nature of your nation is to your great credit.

This has been for me the best "travel log" in a long time, I appreciate your ways of experiencing and documenting...I'm so touched by the beauty of the culture, the people and nature through your eyes, thank you for sharing

Loved the video, you have ways with words, you should write a book if you haven't written one already. Your host's song made me emotional. Thank you.

Whew! What a Dream, your site dropped onto my Laptop at 4am, so many things you initially talked about, about reading, and studying, I did, but then that was about Lichang, Peter Guillart, in the 30s-40s, before Mao, and, a matriarchal society, many other books of the extreme diversity of dress, be it of color, materials, stones, metals, was leading me to leave New Zealand and follow that pathway. Then! The Chenoble disaster happened, and my ex-partner asked me to go to help in Samiland, North Norway. The slaughtering of thousands of Reindeer, from Sesium-3. Around the world again! In the 80's I began studying Mandarin with a Singapore-born Chinese, raised by Jesuit Priests. 3 months into my mother passed on and I never completed it. What a circle. Seeing your video, rang the BELL. Travel, and, BE HERE NOW. Much love to You, ROBIN...........

Really nice video. Thank you for posting

Excellent video Siming. I enjoyed it very much! I have traveled to many villages in China and people there are very friendly. It's too bad I that can speak Chinese like you. Looking forward to see more videos from you.

I have been wrong about China. I really need to visit this beautiful country

Another thanks from an overseas Chinese for this video. My parents were from Guangdong, as you are. I love to see the Chinese way of life when American media has no clue about our culture.

I love all your videos; I am touched by your smile and proud of you as Cantonese. You are much better than those with PhD degrees and only teach people how to win and how to gain an advantage.

So familar with everything in this video, I grew up in a similar town in Yunnan as well. Thanks for showing such beauty of my hometown to the world❤❤❤

you are the best! so insightful and deeply touching!!! this should be made mandatory watching for students!

Great video, thank you so much! Jianzhou's performance was amazing as well.

Wonderful, thank you! Keep doing what you’re doing ❤

thank you for sharing this beautiful place and people, greetings from an overseas chinese in aus :)

树花(Shu Hua) is a type of 地衣(lichen)，genus 扁枝衣屬(Evernia). Some of these Evernia lichens (grown on oak trees) are used in other cultures as perfume ingredients, and as medicinal ingredients for treating some respiratory problems and has some antioxidant and antimicrobial, with derived Evernic acids have potential to formulate into a new class of antibiotics.

You are very good in telling a story. Thank you.

I love your travelogue too。 we have been there and are travelling to China again this year. Thank you.

云南很漂亮，昆明称之为春城，一年四季都有鲜花，是全国最大的鲜花市场，我也希望去看看，谢谢思明妹子。

Well said ! "I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." ~~ Confucius

The place looks beautiful. I am going to Xishuangbanna in April as my mom moved there recently. I am now excited even more after watching your video🥰

Dear Ms Lan Siming, I am moved by your search... for meaning. As a PRC national, as a young person 海归, but most of all, in your honest search for identity in this day and age. You are privileged to be effectively bilingual and more open minded and balanced than most( 小粉红e.g.). I was 24 when TianAnMen happened. Outrage was understandable but even then, the West & US did not fully write off China. There is enough strategic wisdom then to conclude stability is paramount to China and the Long March revolutionary leaders in power then will not want to see what happened in USSR in 1988-1990. As a Chinese Singaporean whose ancestral roots and cultural affinity with all things Chinese are undeniable, we lamented innocent deaths and brutal repression, yet wished China well in their difficult journey ahead. The rest is history. Many worldwide of Chinese descent are happy for China's prosperity & opening up since 1978, 2000( WTO) and I must say, perhaps the people of Taiwan as well. But alas political ideological differences are real and beyond that, personalities, socio-political systems, history and culture are all important elements. With Xi ending term limits set by Deng, no one can predict China's future - but people everywhere 老百姓 - in Iran, in Russia, in Ukraine , in Gaza, in Israel etc etc all long for peace to raise their families and lead their lives towards a better future. There are so many issues so complicated that there is no resolution even through the centuries. I wish you grow in wisdom and maturity, do well for yourselves and your loved ones and stay open-minded and humane in your young life. I will follow your sharing from afar and cheer for your intellectual growth. Keep introspecting and always stay positive. Cheers !

Love all your posts, pls do it weekly

This was so enjoyable and I like your philosophy on knowledge from travel. I understand how hard it could be to join in for a drink because the Hani people know how to drink. 😏

Such a beautiful documentary and awesome way of looking at China and the world.