Xiapu County in China's Fujian province is almost a little too picture-perfect, with photos of the county’s scenic spots abound on Weibo, China’s equivalent to Twitter.
Xiapu is still a largely agrarian town, but much of its picturesque landscape — and the people within it — is created by teams of photo crews masquerading as fake farmers and fishermen. insider.com/fake-rural-chi…
For the right price, Chinese and foreign visitors alike can get the perfect shot for their social media profile, complete with "special effects" courtesy of local businessmen angling to facilitate photoshoots. insider.com/fake-rural-chi…
These fishermen wave colorful nets at just the right angle for photographers to get the ideal shot.
Per @nytimes, photographers lined up in a row along a bridge to catch a staged snapshot of a model in a traditional hat rowing his boat toward the bridge. insider.com/fake-rural-chi…
Filtered photos from Xiapu often show geese taking a leisurely gander.
The woman in this photo is a model, though, and the geese are trained to play to the cameras, tourists told Insider. insider.com/fake-rural-chi…
Eager to put up appearances, some visitors to the county have even likened its landscapes to scenes from the Oscar-winning animated film "Spirited Away."
But angry accounts on Weibo beg to differ, with some reviewers saying they were scammed into visiting Xiapu believing it would be a wonderful, untouched rural environment.
The upheaval, spanning multiple industries and vast swaths of the country, is the result of one giant issue: China's inability to borrow or buy its way out of its current economic crisis.
Sarah Son, a lecturer in Korean studies at the University of Sheffield, told Insider that the debt crisis and squalor seen in South Korean cultural exports like "Squid Game" paints only part of the picture.
The typical Chinese millennial makes $22,000 a year but has no student debt, grew up in an economic boom, and has learned how to outhustle everyone else.
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