How that story unfolded, of course I have already mentioned that to you in my previous notes. (Please read My story article) Yet unaware for all of you have been watching our videos, there is a different story that has unfolded behind our success story.

In our first video creation, the biggest challenge that we faced was our inexperience as amateurs for video production. Both me and my Brother had never seen a live shooting of a video at all. Even both of us witnessed a photo shoot of different food dishes, also on the day when the “Rasavimana“ team visited our home to do a photo shoot of the dishes that I cooked for their food magazine. Even shooting this video was a new experience to the Rasavimana team as well. Main reason was that they have never done a video production in their career. Of course the most sensible thing that they did was to study the whole process deeply and then planned the shooting of our videos. After all those pre preparations and planning, "Rasavimana” team decided to shoot the first video of “Traditional Me" as their first task in the new year of 2020 on 1st January. But unfortunately the shooting had to be postponed due to all of us at home fell sick with a bad viral flu. Finally they started to shoot our first 3 videos in early February 2020. The estimated shooting duration was around 2 days but unexpectedly things got longer and it took about 4 days for the first video. That was the day that we realized that each video should be planned for a similar time duration. Actually to produce a very best quality video, with perfect colours, lighting with spot on quality, it takes minimum about 5 to 6 days. Then only I realized all the different challenges that Sister Liziqi must have faced in order to produce such quality videos.

Even at the time of writing this note, I am so happy to tell you all that we have already published close to about 45 videos.

Yet still I feel a bit of uneasiness every time the camera turns towards me! Yes I have cooked so many dishes over the past so many years, yet I feel a bit unsteadiness in my hand every time I take the knife to cut a green chilli. It was funny as initially I had a very frightening feeling but now I feel emotionally loved and joyful as I know you are directly watching me in that instance. Yes, when I actually meant "You” which are all of you my friends, Millions of my respectful dear friends who are watching right back at me! and of course I have to give you the most delightful, heavenly video every time!

No matter how well organized and well prepared, for our outdoor shootings, nature's challenges always can take us by unexpected surprises. There were many unexpected downpours even though the weather report says otherwise. We waited for hours, for sudden cloud covers to move away from the bright sun, as the clouds were obstructing the sunlight. It is so pleasant to listen to the rhythmic melodies of the birds in the background, where suddenly the tunes will turn into fights and sometimes there were many hours that we had to wait, impatiently until the sudden howling of the pet dogs who live in many houses going silent. Due to many unexpected obstacles, which are beyond our control, our valuable time management has become a great challenge indeed. Our main focus is to produce a beautiful and a perfect video for your entertainment and the magic touch of a top class editing, takes about another 4-5 days. Next comes the thinking and planning of the next new video, which may take some more days. Yes we do face all those challenges and give our top priority every once in 2-3 weeks to give you at least one perfect video.

The most devastating catastrophe that we ever had to face is the world pandemic of the coronavirus. Sri Lanka was hit by the first wave of the Covid19 virus jeopardizing everyone’s life styles, personal goals and future plans. Our country was placed in an emergency health crisis mode and a country wide lock down was declared in the 2nd week of March in 2020. By that time we had already uploaded 5 videos. Since strict travel restrictions were imposed, sadly we were unable to go ahead with the scheduled shooting for about one month. In the second week of April 2020, after a discussion and convincing the relevant health authorities, the “Rasavimana team" was granted permission by the authorities to send the cameraman and one assistant to come and stay at our house. It was such a relief to me as my dream started to resume after a month of temporary pending status. Finally with such big relief, we managed to upload another video, exactly after one month. The pandemic hit all of us so hard. Even at this moment of writing this article, Sri Lanka has already suffered a lot with the Covid19 3rd wave and intensive vaccination programs are underway in every district to control the new positive cases and the number of deaths. Yet in our village in Dankotuwa, we are so lucky and blessed as there is not much of an impact from the Covid19 pandemic at all. Since the entire country is under strict travel restrictions between the provinces and the districts, we still face a number of issues and challenges as the Rasavimana team has to travel from Colombo to here for our continuous video productions which cannot be avoided at all.

Before we started our video production, we faced one of the most sensitive challenges of all! Who are going to watch our videos! Obviously as a professional team that is getting ready to cater for local and worldwide viewers, suddenly doubts started to arise and we got together and discussed, to decide as to what type of viewers that we are going to cater our videos for and the content of our videos. Sri Lankan social media platforms are been accessed only around 4-5 million people from its entire population of approximately 22 million. Again In this 4-5 million social media users, gets divided into Sinhala, Tamil and English languages.

Yes! the majority of the viewers are Sinhala speaking, yet we realized that the long targeted journey of our channel won’t be an enterprising one, only with the Sinhala speaking viewers. We have to bear a very high cost for each of these videos that you are enjoying and after analyzing all the costs, it was clear for us that we will face various hurdles in the long run. At the same time my main target was to take my videos to all of you throughout the world and also needed to maintain the Sri Lankan originality through every one of productions and at all cost to avoid any possible remarks of an imitation of Liziqi and Dianxi Sisters videos. Infact Sri Lanka has been sustained and nourished by entirely different traditional cuisines for centuries, Sri Lankan way of living, our language and centuries old rich culture didn’t make our authenticity a challenge at all as the Chinese culture is very different from ours. The most important aspect that we realized was that our thriving future success will all depend on how strong we, established ourselves on the international platform! Then It was obvious for all of us to give our best commitment and contribution for best quality videos, and most importantly to give the viewers an exceptionally memorable experience. When I feel your love and close friendship surrounded from all over the world, I truly feel that we achieved our target by giving you the best of our creativity.

Yes my dear friends with all your love and blessings, Now "Traditional Me" is a YouTube channel with more than 1 Million subscribers worldwide. You all have made our channel as the first Sri Lankan channel which has surpassed over 1 Million Subscribers in a very short period. Today we feel humbly proud that after releasing our first video, we managed to upload our 35th video within a short period of 14 months with this magnitude of subscribers. For us it is a miracle!

I must tell you that there is an unforgettable chapter to our success, which is about the other individuals who got motivated by our channel. Inspired by Sister Liziqi’s videos, even though there are so many girls from East Asian countries such as China, Vietnam, The Philippines who have started to follow Sister Liziqi’s videos and have started similar channels today, but South Asian countries do not show such enthusiasm at all. Yes, there were very promising attempts by a few Sri Lankan sisters, but among viewers, those videos did not become a hit at all. As of today a large number of sisters have stepped into our path, sharing and revealing their hidden talents. Even those who have stopped half way through now have joined the field with confidence. So I feel that the magnitude of our success truly reveals the establishment of a proud chapter and a role model.

There was a time that I also waited impatiently to watch Sister Liziqi’s videos. I still remember how I stopped all my work and watched her newly uploaded videos, even today as well. Today, your loving and so encouraging comments shows how impatiently you are waiting for our videos to be aired too. Words cannot express that sincere joy and excitement in our hearts. So our focus and aim is to bring you as much as videos. We trust that you are waiting and expecting us in the future too!