Lanwei is an Eastern European blogger who loves China's ethnic minority cultures and films across Yunnan. Her most unforgettable experience: the Yi Torch Festival.
The Torch Festival is a traditional Yi festival: in the sixth lunar month, people light torches, sing and dance around bonfires, praying for harvest and good fortune. Lanwei wore ethnic dress, held a torch and danced with Yi sisters. "The most lively night of my life!" she said in her video.
She also documented Yi clothing, songs and food, recording every detail. "China has 56 ethnic groups, each culture a pearl — I hope to film them one by one," she says.
In the torchlight of the festival, we see a foreigner's sincere love for China's ethnic cultures. What is ethnic is universal — Lanwei's lens proves it.
Lana (b. mid-1990s), Eastern European blogger (from the Latvia/Lithuania region), became famous celebrating the Torch Festival with Yi people - an "international experience officer" for Chinese minority festivals.
Her Yi connection: she came to Yi areas in Liangshan, Sichuan or Chuxiong, Yunnan during the Yi Torch Festival. She wore Yi clothing, lit torches with locals and danced around bonfires, filming everything.
What the festival is: the Torch Festival is the Yi most important traditional festival, usually around the 24th day of the sixth lunar month, lasting three days. People light torches to pray for harvest and safety, hold bullfights, horse races and wrestling, and dance the "Duoluohe" around bonfires at night.
Her experience: her videos record the full journey from observer to participant - learning Yi greetings, wearing Yi dress, learning dances from Yi sisters. Her integration made even Yi viewers feel close.
Significance: she represents international transmission of Chinese minority culture - through an Eastern European girl perspective, the Yi Torch Festival reaches more foreign viewers. She proves "the more ethnic, the more universal".
Lesson: her videos remind us all 56 ethnic cultures are world treasures. Welcome more "Lanas" to experience, share and love them.
Her videos also captured her leaving the Yi village when an elder held her hand and said "come again next Torch Festival". That plain invitation moved her to tears and touched countless viewers. She says: "languages may differ, but smiles and songs are universal." She is now learning the Yi language, hoping to greet friends in it next time.
Finally: the Torch Festival fire will die out, but the "fire of cultural exchange" in Lana heart will not. May more foreign friends enter Chinese villages and become "one of us" at festivals.
She made her festival videos with bilingual subtitles so foreign audiences can understand the meaning. She says "good culture deserves to be known by more people." From experiencing to spreading, she completed the shift from tourist to cultural envoy. That conscious sharing is exactly what is needed today.
