My Chinese Memory | Thai influencer presents a lovely China to followers over past 5 years

(ECNS) -- After living in China for five years, Thai blogger Apinya Charunpumhiran, who has about 300,000 followers across social media platforms, has been committed to sharing stories about China to her followers. 

Charunpumhiran’s story with China began in 2019. Supported by her family, she decided to move to Beijing to be with her Chinese husband, who fell in love with her while they studied together in the UK.

“Life in China is very interesting and I want to share these stories with my fans so they can experience these interesting things,” said Apinya. This motivated her to create accounts on Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and other international social platforms, she said.

According to Charunpumhiran, the majority of her followers are young people from Generation Y and Generation Z. “All of them are not only interested in China about traveling, but also like to learn about Chinese culture, technology, and also want to know the daily news in China.”

She has traveled to many Chinese cities, covering most part of China and discovered unique travel experience. For example, in 2022, she went to the Kubuqi Desert, China’s seventh-largest desert located in north China's Inner Mongolia, and witnessed how China has turned the desert into an oasis by planting trees in innovative ways; in Huaguo Mountain Scenic Area in Lianyungang, east China's Jiangsu Province, she learned about the story of the Monkey King, one of the most famous characters in the novel "Journey to the West"; in Zhangzhou, east China’s Fujian Province, she learned China's skills of paper-cutting and shadow performance and tasted local dishes. Overall, all of these stories have been shared with fans by the blogger.

“Chinese people are friendly,” she said. “In every city that I’ve travelled to, I always get new friends and then they become my assistants to introduce the city to my Thai friends.”

She told ECNS that she likes Inner Mongolia most because there are endless grasslands and vast deserts.

As Charunpumhiran has gradually become more popular on the internet, more and more followers have asked her for China travel plans and she is also glad to offer help to them. She made a Beijing travel plan of four days and three nights for them and gave them suggestions, such as how to book a hotel, buy high-speed train tickets, and use WeChat Payment. 

Besides traveling, she also pays attention to the development of science and technology in China, sharing with her fans e-payment (scanning face or palm), online medical consultation, high-speed rail travel, driverless cabs, new energy vehicles, digital humans, and other Chinese science and technology achievements.

In 2022, Charunpumhiran was granted the honor of China-Thai Tourism and Cultural Ambassador by the China National Tourist Office in Bangkok.

“I'm really proud of this award because I introduced China and told good China stories to Thai people for many years. And I think the official can see me, can know me that I did good things to bring China to my fans in Thailand.”

The influencer mentioned how good it feels to combine what she loves doing with her work. She’d like to make longer videos in the future to share more stories about China to her followers.