First post-COVID Japanese tour group visits Xinjiang region and livestreams details along journey on social media to dispel rumors

A live-streaming journey

Many members of the Japanese tour group have shared photos and videos of their trip on social media, including Yumi Watabe.

Starting from the send-off party for the group in Osaka, Watabe began to livestream the trip on her twitter account by continuous posting videos and photos of various fruits, roasted lamb, the Huoyan Mountain in Turpan and the corpse of Loulan Beauty, who is said to be buried nearly several thousands of years ago,displayed at the regional museum.

Watabe, 33, a ski coach from Hakuba in Japan, had travelled to several cities in China before the COVID-19 pandemic. After finishing her first trip to China's Yunnan province in 2014, Watabe began to learn Chinese to get a better understanding of the country and the trip to the Xinjiang region was her seventh trip to China.

Watabe told the Global Times that the "battle of words" between Chinese Consulate-General in Osaka Xue Jian and some Japanese politicians over the Xinjiang topics had caught her attention and she decided to apply for a trip to the region.

The delicious food as well as splendid landscapes have attracted many netizens, but some of whom called Watabe's posts as "propaganda" for Chinese government. In response, Watabe said that what she is doing is sharing her own views and seeing along the trip and some netizens cannot deny her with inaccurate reports on the region they have learned from the media.

Some reports on the Xinjiang region in Japan may not be accurate, especially those on claiming that the "Chinese government is oppressing ethnic minority groups." Watabe said that some Japanese people's concern about China's ethnic minority groups but they should express their opinions based on what they see with their own eyes as the old saying goes – it is better to see for oneself rather than to hear for many times.

Sumiki Murata, a member of the tour group, also loves sharing his seeing during the trip. But the Global Times has found that some of his posts were blocked for "potential sensitive content" and users needed to change settings or click "view" to see the photos, which include views along the road Murata taken from inside the car or the owner of a farmhouse who displayed a watermelon.

Many tour members told the Global Times that they want to know more about the Xinjiang region during the trip and share with more people about what they have seen.

Keishi Sawada, also a member of the tour group, told the Global Times that he brought along his 11-year-old son together for this trip to the Xinjiang region to let him see the place with his own eyes, talk with local residents and get to know a real Xinjiang.

"I also hope to tell him by this trip to have his own thinking and judgement instead of being misled or influenced by others on anything," Sawada said.

Before the tour group's arrival in Urumqi, the Chinese Consulate-General in Osaka Xue Jian arranged an inclusive interview with the Global Times, during which he expressed hope for the visit to become a window for Japanese to know more about the region as some Western and Japanese media's reports on Xinjiang go against the truth and were made to serve for the US' strategy to contain China.

Xue also expressed hope for more people-to-people exchanges between China and Japan with more people from the two countries to become a firm force to improve bilateral relations.