Education firm finds fortunes via livestream

New Oriental teachers trending online by selling in both Chinese and English

Embattled education training company New Oriental began trending on China's social media platforms recently, after its teachers started livestreaming the selling of agricultural products, books and daily necessities using both Chinese and English.

Anchors on the Douyin livestream channel Dongfang Zhenxuan, meaning Oriental Select, combine useful English phrases with the selling of products, such as providing the English translation of the product and commonly used sentences. The anchors' excellent pronunciation and grammar have garnered the channel an enthusiastic fan base and attracted millions of views. The knowledgeable and oftentimes amusing approach to selling products have led to netizens posting comments such as "It's a good way to spend money where you get a product and also some extra knowledge".

The latest figures from Economic View, a financial media outlet of China News Service, show that the Dongfang Zhenxuan Douyin account had 1.57 million new followers in three days from Friday. The account has over 3.37 million followers in total. Its sales volume was 17.7 million yuan ($2.64 million) over the same three days.