10X Nghe An female student makes culinary video that thousands of people love

The Thon Nu Official channel attracts tens to hundreds of thousands of likes and followers on Youtube, Tiktok and Facebook platforms. Photo: Thanh Phuc

Born and raised in Vinh city, the times she followed her parents back to her hometown always left beautiful memories for Nguyen Lam Anh (Doi Cung ward, Vinh city), currently a student at Vinh University. The rustic dishes in her hometown cooked by her grandmother always made her excited and felt that no delicacies could compare. Growing up, loving to explore and experience, Lam Anh and a group of friends formed a group specializing in "backpacking". The group's destinations were the countryside and villages of Nghe An.

During the trips, enjoying the simple dishes of the people in the regions always made Lam Anh and the group excited and eager. Curiously asking for the recipe, carefully taking notes and using the phone to record the processing steps of the local people, at first it was simply "try cooking if you crave it". But the attraction of the scenery, people and unique cuisine of Nghe An people urged the group to come up with the idea for a culinary channel to introduce and promote those typical dishes to everyone. But from idea to practice is a "long distance"...

Lam Anh and her group of friends are discussing scenes for the video. Photo: Thanh Phuc

“When we started working, we encountered many difficulties. The first was the financial issue. To have a studio as a backdrop for the scenes, we had to pool money to rent an old house from a local in Nam Xuan commune (Nam Dan), renovate it; the garden was also renovated, and vegetables, tubers, and fruits were grown. The second was the issue of script writing. Ideas were always abundant after the trips, but to make a complete video was quite difficult.

Third, everyone in the group, some are students, some are working, so gathering the whole group and having filming and post-production sessions is quite "tense", but because of our passion and desire to spread our hometown's cuisine, it gives us more motivation to do it", Nguyen Lam Anh shared.

The village girl character in the videos is Nguyen Lam Anh, a student of the Faculty of Economics, Vinh University. Photo: Thanh Phuc

The “cameramen” for the vivid and realistic scenes in the videos are young people with a passion for photography. The main character in the videos is a village girl - played by Nguyen Lam Anh. Lam Anh confessed: “I am not good at cooking, especially cooking rustic dishes in the countryside. To have a video that follows the script, the right recipe and especially the “standard taste” of each countryside, I have to spend time learning from the locals.

In particular, in the videos, I have to take on tasks such as: wading through fish ponds, chopping wood, carving trees, sometimes even working as a bricklayer mixing mortar, building… which is really difficult for a “weak” girl like me. To fully play the role, I also have to learn to master the movements of a farmer, a bricklayer, a carpenter,” Lam Anh said.

To play the role, Lam Anh had to learn all the professions of bricklayer, carpenter... Photo: Thanh Phuc

Starting from July 2022, the first video is dishes made from lotus officially launched to the audience on the platforms: Youtube, Tiktok and Facebook. Following that are videos: Dishes made from freshwater fish; dishes made from Nam Dan persimmon, Braised duck with sour bamboo shoots and most recently, delicious dishes made from Vinh oranges.

Up to now, the videos of the Thon Nu Official channel have attracted tens to hundreds of thousands of likes and followers, of which, on the Tiktok account, the number of followers is up to nearly 500,000; on the YouTube platform, the audience of the videos is nearly 70% foreigners, mostly in the United States, Argentina, India, Turkey, Indonesia... This proves that the rustic dishes of Nghe An people are loved and cared for by the audience, thereby helping to promote Nghe An culinary culture to friends around the world.

Although they are spending their own money to create videos for the audience, the group of friends are very motivated when receiving positive feedback from the online community. Photo: Thanh Phuc

Each video with a peaceful countryside setting, with vegetable gardens, fish ponds, with simple farmers and a slow pace of life is very "popular" with viewers as it helps them have moments of peaceful experience, slow down and reduce the noise and hustle and bustle of everyday life. Many comments give compliments and touching confessions to the videos because they "touch the emotions" of viewers not only with food but also evoke in each person childhood memories, nostalgia for home, about mothers and sisters working hard in the countryside.

This is the motivation for Lam Anh and his friends to continue to produce videos such as Tet Chung cakes and Tet jams in the near future. What the group of young people hope and expect is that through the videos, many people will know about the villages of Nghe An, the landscapes, people and cuisine of Nghe An.

In the videos, Lam Anh is a simple country girl, but in real life, Lam Anh is like a proud young lady. Photo: NVCC

Although she is known as a copy of Sichuan “fairy” Li Ziqi - a 31-year-old “internet phenomenon” in China who specializes in producing videos about rural dishes with over 1.3 billion likes and followers, Nguyen Lam Anh does not want to be the “shadow” of a famous person. Nguyen Lam Anh said: “Born later”, she admitted that she learned from the videos of her “senior” Li Ziqi, but she does not want to be a copy, a shadow of that famous person.

Therefore, I always try and make an effort every day to create a unique mark for my Thon Nu channel. For example, in the videos there are dialogues, there are extras... And in the future, not only stopping at the scene in the studio, my group will go to the countryside with rustic dishes to shoot. This will create attractiveness, liveliness, authenticity for the videos, creating a difference from other video channels".

Videos about cuisine with peaceful life in the countryside, charming rural scenery of Lam Anh and his group of friends have attracted audiences persistently. Photo: Thanh Phuc

Not as noisy and chaotic as the nonsense and sensational vlogs on YouTube, the culinary videos with the peaceful pace of life in the countryside, the charming scenery of the countryside of Lam Anh and his group of friends have attracted audiences persistently. Watching those gentle and authentic videos, the audience feels like returning to their childhood, with the simple dishes of the past filled with emotions. From there, creating a spread and promoting the beauty of Nghe An countryside culture to friends everywhere...