Huo Deyu patiently makes a headpiece and props for a character she is about to imitate online, before beginning on her makeup. When she puts everything on, magic happens, and in an instant Huo transforms into the likeness of the painted statue of a goddess.
As part of the resurgence of interest celebrated online as "ancestry awakening", Huo is among a growing cohort of young Chinese embracing their traditional culture, a heritage that dates back thousands of years.
The 29-year-old university dance major from Jiangsu province has been sharing such transformations on social media for about four years, and now has 530,000 followers on lifestyle platform Xiaohongshu. Her latest videos, which include her imitations of painted statues from Yuhuang Temple in Shanxi province, were filmed following the temple's surge in popularity after its appearance in the recent video game, Black Myth: Wukong.
"I was fascinated by the costumes of the statues and the mysterious nature of the characters, and was inspired to study these ancient artworks," Huo says, adding that she found great joy in the process.
Her transformation videos are especially popular, averaging over 1 million views.
Huo has long had an interest in Chinese culture and began learning traditional dance when she was 4.
She has even gone so far as to learn how to make velvet flowers, a listed form of intangible cultural heritage in Jiangsu.
"Compared to our parents' generation, we started to learn about traditional culture at a relatively early age," she says. "We no longer see it as something only found in museums. Rather, we want to feel traditional culture and breathe new life into it."
Huo says that she is not alone in her love of combining traditional culture with modern elements, and speaks of the rising availability of cultural products that appeal to the masses.
