An internet celebrity selling honey, who lives in Agan village, Changning county, Yunnan province, has attracted many people’s attention recently. 

[Photo/Wu Zaizhong Zhao Pengfei]

This Internet celebrity, Wu Liancheng, is 47 years old, and he always plays cucurbit flute for the audiences and then sell honey in the live streaming. Now, he is not only popular in the internet world, but also famous in his village. 

“In the past, villagers didn’t like me and stayed away from me because I did not want to do farm work and just sold wild mushrooms and honey for living,” Wu Liancheng said. “I was called   ‘lounger’ or‘lazybone’ by them. ”

“The local government helped me rebuilt my dilapidated house and village cadres came to persuade me again and again. I finally decided to do something to change my life, to get rid of poverty.”Wu Liancheng recalled. 

[Photo/Wu Zaizhong Zhao Pengfei]

“My wife and I often surf the internet, so we thought internet may be a good choice,” Wu said. He moved bees from the wall of his house to mountains behind the village in 2017 and has started wild beekeeping since then. After harvesting some honey, he sells it online via Kwai and WeChat. His honey attracts an increasing number of customers and some of them even come from further Shandong and Zhejiang province. 

After several years of development, Wu Liancheng has more than 70 honeycombs, which brought him an income of about 20,000 yuan in 2019 and this number is expected to pass 20,000 this year. Of which, online sales account for nearly half. 

[Photo/Wu Zaizhong Zhao Pengfei]

To ensure the quality of honey, Wu bought a honey detector and a microscope. “The quality of my honey is good, but sometimes I need to figure out whether the honey provided by others is good enough. I don’t want to lose my brand just because I dropped it once,” He said. 

[Photo/Wu Zaizhong Zhao Pengfei]

When Wu achieved success online, he becomes popular among villagers, as they want to learn how to raise bees and sell honey from him. After that, raising three or five colonies of bees is increasingly common in Agan village, and selling honey has helped some families overcome poverty. Wu Liancheng now wants to motivate more villagers to join him to make his brand more competitive. “With effort, we can have a better life,” He said. 

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(Editors: Alison, Rachel)