Ninomiya shares snippets of her everyday reality in China with roughly 33,000 followers on Instagram<\/a> and 44,000 on Xiaohongshu<\/a> (known in English as RedNote), a Chinese social media and e-commerce platform that blends elements of Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest and has more than 300 million monthly active users.\u00a0<\/p>\n But this is a far cry from \u201cChinamaxxing<\/a>,\u201d a recent social media trend where Westerners adopt Chinese customs or practices with ardent superficiality: drinking hot water, dabbling in tai chi or even simply wearing red.<\/p>\n Ninomiya\u2019s videos are part of a yearslong journey in which she has readily embraced a life abroad, reflected in clips that show her doing everything from getting massages and taste-testing the local KFC to visiting the scenic cliffs of Hunan Province\u2019s Zhangjiajie,\u00a0a UNESCO World Heritage site.<\/p>\n She says she feels \u201cinspired by the speed and initiative\u201d of a city like Shanghai, situated as it is in a country \u201cwhere new ideas and services are constantly emerging.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n \n Sakaekiko Ninomiya, an MBA student in Shanghai, shares videos about daily life in China with both Chinese and Japanese audiences on social media. While she believes increased interest in Chinese culture is overall a net positive, Ninomiya says superficial approaches like Chinamaxxing \u201ccan obscure the values of the people who actually live there and the complexities of society.\u201d Her goal with social media is to \u201cguide people toward a more three-dimensional understanding of China.\u201d<\/p>\n Last year, Japan received a record 42.7 million foreign visitors. The surge has included a growing number of influencers, who often draw criticism<\/a> for social faux pas. Still, creators such as Paolo from Tokyo<\/a>, Chris Broad<\/a> and Sharla in Japan<\/a> \u2014 each with audiences in the millions \u2014 have played a significant role<\/a> in shaping how global viewers understand life in Japan.<\/p>\n Compared with those Japan-based personalities, however, Ninomiya navigates an arguably more complicated landscape. Her growth as a content creator comes at a time of deep mistrust between not just the governments of Japan and China but their societies as well.<\/p>\n That roughly 9 in 10 Japanese people<\/a> hold unfavorable views of China has been a persistent reality for years. Chinese public sentiment toward Japan, long strained in the first place, has also worsened amid renewed tensions following Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi\u2019s November remarks suggesting<\/a> that a Chinese naval blockade of Taiwan could constitute a \u201csurvival-threatening situation\u201d for Japan.<\/p>\n Fallout from the remarks<\/a> quickly spilled into cultural life. Concerts by Japanese artists \u2014 including Ayumi Hamasaki, who performed to an empty arena in Shanghai after her show was canceled \u2014 were abruptly halted, while releases for Japanese films such as \u201cDetective Conan\u201d and \u201cCells at Work!\u201d were postponed as Beijing tightened restrictions on Japan-made entertainment and advised its citizens to avoid traveling to the country<\/a>.<\/p>\n Against this backdrop, Japanese vloggers and influencers on Xiaohongshu, Instagram and YouTube offer glimpses of cultural exchange \u2014 functioning, in effect, as digital diplomats even as a cloud of antipathy continues to hover over the political domain.<\/p>\n Public-facing personas<\/p>\n A mere 92,900 Japanese citizens live in China today, a 38% decline from a peak of 150,000 in 2012. That same year, more than 21,000 Japanese students were studying in China. By 2023, according to Japan\u2019s education ministry, that number had fallen to around 3,000<\/a> \u2014\u00a0a drop of 85%.<\/p>\n Though the digital pond of the Chinese internet is massive, bilingual Japanese vloggers are still a rare breed, which perhaps explains the broad interest in these content creators.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n \n For those like Sakaekiko Ninomiya who are producing content, even casual videos can take on an outsized significance. They offer not only a slice of life beyond the headlines but recognition Ninomiya says she was inspired to pursue graduate studies in China during a short stint in Xiamen, Fujian Province, in 2023, when she was able to experience “everyday culture and values that you don\u2019t see as a tourist.\u201d<\/p>\n Xiamen was also the entry point for Shunsuke \u201cDragon\u201d Nakamura, 29, who says the kindness of Chinese students at Xiamen University, where he did a three-week study abroad course in 2017, left a lasting impression.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI was surprised by how different China was from what I had imagined,\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n In 2024, Nakamura returned to spend 10 months in Beijing, a time in which he also traveled extensively from Inner Mongolia to southwest Sichuan Province. He now works as a personal trainer in Tokyo while maintaining a presence<\/a> on Xiaohongshu, where he shares friendly video messages in fluent Mandarin with more than 32,000 followers.<\/p>\n Mutual cultural appreciation exists among social media users, he says, including Japanese people who are open to learning more about China firsthand and Chinese people with a fondness for Japanese language and culture. \u201cCompared to Japan, I get the sense that there are more (Chinese) people who want to voice their opinions and leave comments,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n While the Japanese population in China has declined, the inverse is true in Japan. Chinese nationals are the largest group of foreign residents, numbering more than 930,000<\/a> at the end of 2025. Roughly 124,000 are students<\/a>, according to the Japan Student Services Organization, accounting for more than one-third of all international students.\u00a0<\/p>\n This asymmetry helps shape the audiences that Ninomiya, Nakamura and their contemporaries attract. Their Xiaohongshu posts \u2014\u00a0often subtitled in both Chinese and Japanese \u2014\u00a0create a space for both Japanophiles in China and overseas Chinese viewers who can see their country anew through a defamiliarized lens.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou speak Chinese really well,\u201d one user commented on Nakamura\u2019s recent video of a stretch of cherry blossoms in Saitama. \u201cLet\u2019s have a drink in Shinjuku sometime.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n \n Shunsuke \u201cDragon\u201d Nakamura lived in Beijing for 10 months and traveled extensively across China. Since returning to Japan, he continues to share vlogs in Mandarin with more than 32,000 followers on Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu. Meanwhile, platforms such as Instagram and YouTube reach a complementary demographic: Japan-based viewers curious about life in China. Ninomiya says she keeps both audiences in mind, aiming to \u201ccreate content that connects both perspectives.\u201d Her videos often focus on shared experiences \u2014 taking ID photos, visiting a Christmas market, trying food stalls at a festival \u2014 that resonate across cultural lines. Some of her Japanese followers say their perceptions of China have shifted or that they\u2019ve been inspired to visit. Even relatively mundane content, she says, \u201ccan greatly change people\u2019s impressions of a country.\u201d<\/p>\n That visibility comes with risks, however.<\/p>\n After posting about a Japanese singer\u2019s concert in Nanjing in November 2025, Nakamura received a wave of hostile messages from Chinese users angered by his invocation of a city associated with the brutality of Japanese wartime occupation. The backlash came just as bilateral tensions were worsening \u2014 a reminder of how quickly history and politics can transform the tenor of social media.<\/p>\n Criticism flows in both directions. \u201cAn MBA in a communist country?\u201d commented a user on Ninomiya\u2019s Instagram reel about her graduate school orientation. \u201cAre you kidding me?\u201d<\/p>\n At close range<\/p>\n These Japanese content creators have followed diverse paths to their online niches.<\/p>\n Kazuki Ota, a business owner in his 30s, first visited China in 2015 after traveling to more than 30 countries. \u201cI didn\u2019t have any real sense of Chinese people,\u201d he says, recalling how unexpectedly different \u2014 and fascinating \u2014 Shanghai seemed from the rest of the world.<\/p>\n He later learned Mandarin informally while working in New York, where he spent much of his time with Chinese friends. Now based in Tokyo, Ota travels to China monthly for business and leisure, documenting his experiences on Xiaohongshu for more than 120,000 followers.<\/p>\n His vlogs, narrated in a casual mash-up of Mandarin and Japanese, alternate between experiences like a wedding ceremony in Kyoto and a solo voyage to the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n \n Tokyo-based creator Kazuki Ota shares videos from his travels across China with more than 120,000 followers on Xiaohongshu. Other influencers offer an even more intimate vantage point.<\/p>\n Xingcai, who goes by an online handle for privacy reasons, grew up in Aichi Prefecture and first studied in China as a university student. She later returned on a Chinese government scholarship and settled in Nanjing in 2019 after marrying her Chinese husband. They have two daughters together.<\/p>\n Her videos \u2014 primarily in Japanese \u2014 chronicle family life for an audience of around 8,000 subscribers on YouTube: trips to Shanghai Disneyland, visits to the zoo, rides on high-speed trains. On the Chinese platform Bilibili, a video about bubble tea shops in Nanjing has drawn nearly 1 million views.<\/p>\n Unlike the other creators, Xingcai offers a view into daily life from a family perspective. With her husband and in-laws occasionally appearing in her videos, she occupies a space that is neither fully foreign nor fully local.<\/p>\n That proximity lends even more credibility to how her content is received.<\/p>\n In one of Xingcai\u2019s early videos, she shared a list of essential apps for navigating life in China, from mobile payments to translation tools. \u201cThat was helpful!\u201d one Japanese viewer commented. Another, responding to a vlog about Lunar New Year, wrote: \u201cI could really feel the fun atmosphere of your big family! \u2026 It\u2019s so nice that dads in China help out with cooking, too.\u201d<\/p>\n These exchanges may seem small, but they point to a broader dynamic at play.<\/p>\n The appeal of these Japanese influencers is not simply surface-level. In a study of Chinese social media users\u2019 interactions with foreign influencers<\/a> on Xiaohongshu and Douyin, researchers at Beijing Foreign Studies University found that \u201cgenuine admiration and curiosity\u201d toward non-Chinese creators is a key driver of their popularity.<\/p>\n Such content can also function as a form of \u201csoft validation,\u201d the researchers noted, in which foreigners\u2019 online engagement is interpreted as an acknowledgment of China\u2019s cultural appeal.<\/p>\n In that sense, even casual videos can take on an outsized significance. They offer not only a slice of life beyond the headlines but recognition of a shared humanity that resonates with audiences on both sides.<\/p>\n The limits of diplomacy<\/p>\n Efforts to improve cultural ties between China and Japan have not been limited to individuals.<\/p>\n In April 2025, officials from China, Japan and South Korea inaugurated the Year of China-Japan-Korea Cultural Exchange<\/a>, an initiative aimed at fostering closer ties through tourism, media and the arts. Yet even as those efforts got underway, relations between Tokyo and Beijing deteriorated, with the restrictions on entertainment and travel underscoring how quickly progress can stall.<\/p>\n![\"Sakaekiko](\"https:\/\/cdnx.premiumread.com\/?url=https:\/\/www.japantimes.co.jp\/japantimes\/uploads\/images\/2026\/05\/11\/539130.jpg&q=100&f=webp&t=1.53\" "\\"Sakaekiko")
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\n | COURTESY OF SAKAEKIKO NINOMIYA\n <\/p>\n![\"For](\"https:\/\/cdnx.premiumread.com\/?url=https:\/\/www.japantimes.co.jp\/japantimes\/uploads\/images\/2026\/05\/11\/539125.jpg&q=100&f=webp&t=1.53\" "\\"For")
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\nof a shared humanity.
\n | COURTESY OF SAKAEKIKO NINOMIYA\n <\/p>\n![\"Shunsuke](\"https:\/\/cdnx.premiumread.com\/?url=https:\/\/www.japantimes.co.jp\/japantimes\/uploads\/images\/2026\/05\/11\/539127.jpeg&q=100&f=webp&t=1.53\" "\\"Shunsuke")
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\n | COURTESY OF SHUNSUKE NAKAMURA\n <\/p>\n![\"Tokyo-based](\"https:\/\/cdnx.premiumread.com\/?url=https:\/\/www.japantimes.co.jp\/japantimes\/uploads\/images\/2026\/05\/11\/539128.jpeg&q=100&f=webp&t=1.53\" "\\"Tokyo-based")
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\n | COURTESY OF KAZUKI OTA\n <\/p>\n
![\"Xingcai,](\"https:\/\/cdnx.premiumread.com\/?url=https:\/\/www.japantimes.co.jp\/japantimes\/uploads\/images\/2026\/05\/11\/539134.jpg&q=100&f=webp&t=1.53\" "\\"Xingcai,")
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