These adorable identically-dressed quadruplets are helping to lift their family out of poverty after their parents began live-streaming cute footage of the girls’ daily lives to some two million fans.
The family from the city of Xianyang in China’s north-western Shaanxi Province had relied for many years on the monthly government subsidies to make ends meet.
The girls’ proud father, surnamed Zhao, said: “No ordinary family can handle four kids at once. The costs are just too high, including for example the price of their baby formula.”
He added: “After they were born in 2014, we lived really tough lives for a few years. We were very poor and relied on the support of the government.”
But the sisters, whose names have not been reported but who are now four years old, eventually became the ones who would help change their family’s fortunes.
It began when Zhao’s wife started taking short videos of their girls in January 2018.
Zhao recalled: “The short videos were suddenly viewed over a million times.”
In the year since, they have gained more than two million fans on a variety of live-streaming platforms, including some of the most popular applications such as ‘Douyin’ – known in English-speaking markets as ‘Tik Tok’.
While Zhao did not reveal how much they now earn, he said the amount was enough for them to cancel their monthly social welfare subsidies.
He said: “We are now no longer a burden to the country.”
The dad, who also sells produce online as a side business, added: “Live streaming has benefited us in three ways.
“First, we can take care of our children and earn our living expenses.
“Second, all six of us can be together. We don’t have to leave our kids with their grandparents while we work for more pay in other cities.
“And third, we now get to watch them as they grow every single day.”
According to Hamburg-based online statistics portal Statista, the market size of China’s live streaming industry is expected to reach 112 billion RMB (12.7 billion GBP) by 2020.
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Story By: John Feng, Sub-Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: AsiaWire
