When livestreaming offers a lifeline

Fortunate find: Dai using his phone to shoot a video of his wife preparing food at his house in Bac Kan province, Vietnam. He never imagined he would earn 10 times more than before livestreaming. — AFP

Vi Thi Anh spent half a decade doing monotonous low-paid work in industrial hubs near Vietnam’s capital Hanoi, assembling mobile phones for global electronics companies.

Then she discovered she could earn vastly more hawking food products to thousands of followers as one of the country’s growing cadre of TikTok livestreamers.