Meet Yang Mingjin: a tire-shop owner by day and a cinematic hero by night. For 26 years, this Yunnan vocational school grad has hauled projectors into China’s remote mountain villages, transforming starry skies into open-air theaters 🌌🎥.
Yang’s double life began after graduating as a mechanic. By daylight, he fixes flats in the Chinese mainland’s southwestern province. But when dusk falls, he trades wrenches for reels, renting films and trekking to villages where movie nights are a rare luxury. \"Some elders here had never seen a film bigger than a phone screen,\" he shares.
His mobile cinema bridges urban-rural cultural gaps, screening everything from classic dramas to nature documentaries. Villagers now gather like it’s festival season whenever his van arrives – kids cheering, grandparents leaning forward in plastic chairs 🪑✨.
This isn’t just about entertainment. Yang’s story reflects China’s broader push to enrich rural communities through cultural access. As streaming algorithms dominate globally, his hand-picked screenings remind us: sometimes the best connections happen offline.
