Authorities in Bangladesh are investigating cases of hundreds of Chinese nationals livestreaming videos from poorer parts of the country's capital.
According to a report by Prothamalo, a group of Chinese people who say they are vloggers have been livestreaming footage for months from Dhaka and passing off the videos as originating from New Delhi. They have been making disparaging comments about the living conditions in the country.
The Chinese nationals were spotted in Sector 12 of Uttara and the Tekpara area in Dhaka.
There is no accurate information on how many vloggers are involved in the activity. Local residents say that they estimated seeing more than 150 Chinese nationals in the neighbourhood’s streets and alleyways.
The residents who spoke to Protham Alo say that they have no idea what is being done with the videos or where it is published. They expressed the increased irritation with the persons, as some of them even enter into homes and record people in them. One resident said that they even enterd bathrooms.
The language barrier makes it difficult to communicate their discomfort to them.
One resident told the news site, “It would be understandable if this were just a matter of a day or two. But they (the Chinese nationals) have been making these videos for months. They start filming before we even wake up. When we go to bed, we still see them filming. But we have no idea what they do with these videos.
The videos showcase some of the less-developed parts of the city. The neighbourhoods are poorly maintained due to the low incomes of the residents and the dense populations.
Some of the vloggers have reportedly employed locals to work for them for months. One Bangladeshi woman, Ritu Akhtar, said that she acted as a guide to the foreigners. She was being paid Tk 700 to Tk 800 for a day. She said that the Chinese vloggers were posting the video on WeChat and Douyin, as well as various other platforms
One of the vloggers told reported that they were recordign thte footage as part of product ptomotion activites but refused to elaborate when asked why they chose that part of the city to do so.
The vloggers speak to the camers while recoridn gthe footage. Translations of their comments showed that some of the vloggers were claiming that they were livestreaming from New Delhi, India. Some of them described Bangladeshis as poor people who live in dirty, damp conditions.
Some of the Chinese women bloggers told their viewers that they were living with their husbands and families because they got married in India.
In one of the videos, a Chinese woman named Mianmian, from Sichuan province in China, recorded from Uttara in Bangladesh and says to the camera, “This is New Delhi. Their homes are extremely dirty. There isn't even a fan inside the tin-roofed houses. This place is quite underdeveloped, dirty and unhygienic, and the law-and-order situation is poor.”
Another vlogger claimed that the people were drinking tea made of ‘cow urine and dirty river water’.
Outrage in African countries after Chinese streamers exploited children
In 2022, there were reports of Chinese nationals filming in several African countries and making racist content, dehumanising the locals.
An analysis by the nonprofit publication ‘Rest of the World’ analysed videos from Guinea, Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique, and Kenya, as well as other countries in Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia and found that these videos gathered millions of views on Chinese social media.
Experts found that the vloggers were monetising racial inequality by portraying people from the countries as backwards and the Chinese as ‘saviours’ with money. There were even reports of Chinese vloggers torturing and humiliating African children for video content.
After public outrage and a BBC investigation, the term ‘Africa’ was blocked on WeChat and Douyin, ending the livestreams.
