Across China: Live-streaming adds festivity to Tibetan New Year

LHASA -- With a camera recording her every movement, Drolma was carefully handling a sheep head, a must for the Tibetan New Year banquet.

"You have to burn the fleece and chop off the horn before boiling the head," she said to the camera.

The Tibetan college student and her friend produce short videos covering topics like ethnic rituals, cooking tips and Tibetan dances, attracting more than 50,000 followers over the past month.China has been fighting the novel coronavirus outbreak, with more than 70,000 infected cases reported by Friday.

Though the Tibet autonomous region only reported one confirmed case and has not seen new reports of the novel coronavirus infection for over four weeks, local authorities are still on high alert, with residents staying at home and schools postponing the new semester.

Instead of gathering and visiting relatives and friends on the Tibetan New Year that fell on Monday this year, local people live-streamed their celebrations in their households, introducing the ethnic culture to the outside world.

Tenzen shared with her followers how to make a traditional kind of porridge made of flour lumps stuffed with pepper, wool, stone, salt and wood charcoal carrying different meanings.

"The pepper symbolizes anger, the wool means tender-tempered, while the salt says you are lazy," she explained to the netizens, drawing many "LOLs" on screen.

Some of the Tibetan people made some innovations this year, shaping the lumps into the images of bats and coronavirus. In one post on WeChat, a figurine with zanba, a traditional Tibetan staple food of roasted barley flour, was put into a box, on top of which was a note saying "kill the novel coronavirus."

On Wednesday, the traditional horse show was also brought online, with performances including a human pyramid on horses and making toast on horseback. Wangdu, a resident in the regional capital of Lhasa, watched the show with his family.

"My mother who has difficulty walking was not able to enjoy the show at the horse ranch in the past. This year, we can enjoy the show together without leaving home," he said.

By live-streaming, 22-year-old Tsezen has the chance to promote traditional Tibetan costumes. "The cloth was imported from Nepal and India, you can also have customized designs," she said while pointing to the clothes she was wearing. She said the express services were not suspended, so their online clothing sales were not affected by the epidemic.

Born into a tailor's family, the college student has studied away from home since she was 12 years old. The epidemic has brought her courses online.

"It is the longest winter vacation that I have spent at home. I am glad that I can have more time to be with my parents," she said.