By Xiong Weisheng

BEIJING, May 19 (China Economic Net) — When Pakistani vlogger Mahzaib Abbasi began making videos about China in late 2020, she wanted to show a country many people around her had never seen beyond stereotypes.

"China-related videos are still a very important part of my journey because that experience shaped me a lot," she said.

Her story points to a quieter shift in China-Pakistan cultural exchange as the two countries mark the 75th anniversary of diplomatic ties. Such ties are no longer carried only by official visits and familiar slogans of friendship. They are also taking shape in Urdu-language videos, on film sets, on Chinese animation platforms and in the daily work of explaining one society to another.

Explaining China in Urdu

Abbasi moved to China in 2016 and later studied Chinese in Beijing. Over the years, she travelled to more than 50 cities, filming daily life, food, festivals and local customs for viewers who often knew China through second-hand impressions.

The more she travelled, the more she felt that the China she saw up close was different from the China many people around her imagined. That gap pushed her to start vlogging in late 2020. Speaking in Urdu, with Chinese and English subtitles, she filmed food streets, campuses, festivals, city life and encounters with ordinary people.

In one Spring Festival trip to Yunnan, she visited Napahai Lake in Shangri-La, where sheep grazed on winter pasture and tourists dressed in Tibetan robes posed for photos. Abbasi joined two Chinese tourists she had met the day before, dancing with them in a brightly coloured robe as her camera recorded the scene. It was the kind of small, unscripted moment that made her videos feel less like travel promotion and more like personal testimony.

"I started vlogging to show what the real China is like," she said in an earlier interview with CEN. "Many people have never been to China and have stereotypes against the country."

Some of her videos travelled far beyond a small circle of China watchers. A 2021 vlog on Eid celebrations in Lanzhou reached one million views in less than a week and drew more than 8,000 comments. For many viewers, the appeal was that a Pakistani creator was speaking about China in Urdu, through familiar cultural references and from a Muslim perspective.

So far, Abbasi has made 368 vlogs and has more than 210,000 followers on YouTube. Her audience comes mainly from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Malaysia and other Asian countries. She now lives in Dubai, but China remains a significant part of her work.

The questions she receives have also changed. Viewers still ask about food, travel and student life, but many now want to know about safety, scholarships, career opportunities, living costs, technology and modern Chinese cities.

On Chinese film sets

As Abbasi carried her camera through Chinese cities, Anees Qadir was finding his own way through China's film sets, script in hand.

It was not where Qadir had expected to be when he first came to China. Qadir had worked as a radio broadcaster in Pakistan before moving to Xi'an to study aeronautical engineering. He later found his way into modelling, advertisements and, eventually, Chinese film sets.

The transition was slow. His first screen role lasted only one or two minutes. Chinese scripts had to be translated so he could understand the scene and character, then turned into pinyin for memorisation. Those early difficulties became part of his training.

Four years on, Qadir says he can now read most scripts more directly in Chinese and memorise Chinese lines more easily.

"My Chinese has improved a lot. Now I can read lines more easily and memorise them," he said. "It has helped me get better roles."

He has since appeared in 14 Chinese film and television projects, including eight TV dramas and six films. His credits include Nanyang Daughter's Love, Ask the Vast, Dream City and the Hong Kong action film A Mission in Danger. For Qadir, Ask the Vast was especially meaningful because he portrayed the historical figure M.N. Roy.

Qadir still hopes to develop a cross-border film about Pakistan-China cooperation around the Karakoram Highway, a project he first mentioned in 2022. The script now needs changes, he said, because circumstances have moved on.

"I want both countries to collaborate and make one blockbuster movie related to Pakistan-China friendship, history and culture," he said.

Pakistani stories seek Chinese audiences

Pakistani stories are also trying to travel in the other direction.

For Chinese audiences, Pakistan is often more familiar as a diplomatic partner than as a source of films, characters and popular culture. That makes each release or online response small in scale, but useful as a test of whether Pakistani stories can find room in China's crowded entertainment market.

Animation has so far offered one of the clearer entry points. The Donkey King and Allahyar and the Legend of Markhor both reached Chinese cinemas, giving Pakistani animation a rare presence on the Chinese big screen. Their releases did not turn Pakistani films into a mainstream category in China, but they suggested that animation may cross some barriers more easily than many live-action stories: it is visual, family-friendly and less dependent on prior knowledge of Pakistan.

The same curiosity has appeared online. In 2023, the showreel of the Pakistani hand-drawn animated film The Glassworker drew more than 558,000 views and over 5,000 comments and reviews on Bilibili in just one month. Some viewers said they were surprised by the quality of Pakistani animation and looked forward to the full film.

The response suggested that Pakistani cultural products could draw interest from viewers who were not necessarily looking for Pakistan-related content. They found a film style, a visual language and a story world that felt accessible enough to comment on, share and anticipate.

The planned China release of The Legend of Maula Jatt adds a different test. The Punjabi-language blockbuster, directed by Bilal Lashari, is set to reach Chinese cinemas from May 21, according to the director's announcement. Unlike animation, it brings a more culturally specific story, language and cinematic tradition into a market where Pakistani cinema remains little known.

If the release goes ahead as planned, one of Pakistan's most commercially successful films will meet Chinese viewers as entertainment. Its performance may offer a clearer sense of how far Pakistani cinema can travel in China beyond novelty and friendship narratives.

From scattered attention to closer exchange

These cases suggest that cultural exchange is becoming more personal, but it is still taking shape.

A vlogger can help South Asian viewers see everyday China. A Pakistani actor can bring familiar accents and faces to Chinese screens. A film or animation can make Chinese viewers curious about Pakistani stories. Each example is small, but together they show how cultural ties can move beyond formal occasions.

The next step is to make such encounters more regular. That requires translation, subtitles, distribution, promotion and stories that can stand on their own for both audiences.

After 75 years of diplomatic ties, China and Pakistan already have a strong political foundation. What creators are adding is a more everyday layer: videos people watch, characters they recognise, and stories they may want to follow.

For now, that work is moving slowly, one video, one role and one screening at a time.