The man selling noodles in China is tired of the livestream army

Since Cheng Yunfu became famous, his home has always been surrounded by thousands of streamers and fans. He was emaciated because he had to work continuously, with no days off.
Just with the clip recording the scene of selling noodles in the market, Cheng Yunfu (39 years old), an ordinary farmer in Liangqiu village (Fei district, Shandong province) became a famous face throughout China. According to the The Paper , Cheng is admired for keeping the price of each bowl of noodles only 3 yuan for the past 15 years.

Every day, hundreds of vloggers and fans come to the village to film and take pictures with the emerging internet phenomenon. For streamers, Cheng is an abundant “view mine”. Many people even stationed themselves in the village to broadcast day and night. The village with a population of less than 1,500 people sometimes welcomes up to 1,000 streamers. Cheng is famous on Chinese social media for a bowl of noodles priced at 3 yuan. Live stream army Due to the large number of visitors, Cheng could not even go to the market as usual or leisurely go up the mountain to walk like before. There were too many people to find, he had to move the noodle shop to sell it right at the gate of his house. Cheng’s house is built on the mountain, with only one main room and two small rooms on the side. Near noon, the streamer and the audience crowded outside the gate with cameras and phones held. Cheng is tucked in the middle with a kneading table, the scene is like a Roman arena. “Noodle brother, say a few words”, “Look here and say hello to the audience”, the vlogger’s invitations kept ringing. In the crowd, live streamers do all sorts of things like dancing, singing, arguing to get the attention of their audience. Since becoming famous, Cheng has mostly just stood at the gate making noodles or rested in the house. His mother set up a beverage stand outside the gate to sell to guests who came to see. Facing the curious crowd at her door, she appeared calm. However, she still couldn’t understand why her ordinary second son was so attractive. The mother also said that she did not expect this age to be able to earn money thanks to the popularity of the child. The live stream army surrounded Cheng’s house day and night, following him while he was walking in the mountains. Thanks to the popularity of the “noodle brother”, people in the village also have more jobs. Dozens of food stalls were set up near his house. Chen’s village is a backward agricultural area, with only a small asphalt road leading to the village. Previously, this road did not have much traffic, sometimes there were cars passing by without stopping. To create a good image, Cheng’s village repaired the road through the night, in cooperation with the telecommunications company to install a high-speed network. Many villagers gave up farming, turned to selling food, opened inns, some imitated vloggers and went live in hopes of making money from it. From 10am to midnight, thousands of people come and go from the village. There are many people who drive cars for 3 hours from Xuzhou, Jiangsu come here just to eat a bowl of 3 yuan noodles. Some people from Inner Mongolia came here just to take pictures with Cheng. Some people bring their children here so that the children can be inspired by the “noodle brother”. Liaocheng, who lives 390 km from Cheng’s village, uses the word “pilgrimage” to describe his journey to meet the “noodle brother”. Liaocheng said that like many others, he sees Cheng as a star. Talking about her popularity, Cheng expressed it was a coincidence, like a dream. After talking for a few sentences, he scratched his head again and smiled shyly. Cheng is tired of having to receive many curious people to film and take pictures. Cheng’s life is turned upside down. Many people scrutinize, probe and disturb his family. Some people deliberately broke bricks in the wall to look into the yard, at night, there were people who took beer bottles and rotten vegetables and threw them into the house. Cheng looked much thinner, his skin dark and the deep wrinkles at the corners of his eyes made him look older than his years. Since becoming famous, he has not taken a day off. During the past 2 days, he had a cold, his body was more emaciated. At 15:00, it was pouring rain, Cheng had finished the last dough and was about to stop selling. He looked tired, his eyes lost. He signaled to the spectators and quickly went inside, leaving his relatives to clean up the tools.