FILE PHOTO: Actor Wang Bin portrays the Tang-Dynasty monk Xuanzang on Hetou Old Street in Tangshan, Hebei Province.

An NPC playing Ne Zha interacts with tourists at the Red Beach National Scenic Corridor in Panjin, Liaoning Province. Photo: VCG

During this year’s National Day holiday, tourist attractions across China drew large numbers of visitors, and interacting with NPCs became a must-try experience for many of them. Originally used in video games, the term “non-player character” (NPC) refers to a character controlled by the system rather than the player. Now, at tourist sites, a growing number of performers are bringing these characters to life, enriching the visitor experience through conversation and interaction.

A new profession takes shape

Live-action NPCs are becoming major draws at tourist attractions across China. At Wansui Mountain in Kaifeng, Henan Province, visitors queue at the “Chubby Doctor’s” stall to have their pulse taken and receive a diagnosis, exchanging banter with him along the way. On Hetou Old Street in Tangshan, Hebei Province, Wang Bin, an out-of-work actor, wanders the street dressed as the monk Xuanzang (the real-life inspiration for the Tang Monk in Journey to the West). Against the modern streetscape, he seems to have stepped across the centuries—a sight that has made him an internet sensation. At Tengwang Pavilion in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, an NPC playing the Tang poet Wang Bo recites “Preface to the Pavilion of Prince Teng” in call-and-response with visitors, as if the poet had traveled a thousand years into the present.

Wang Yusu, an associate research fellow at the Institute of Marxist Literary and Art Theory of the Chinese National Academy of Arts, sees the shift from computer-controlled NPCs in video games to live-action performers at tourist sites as an extension of digital media into the physical world. For the generation of “digital natives” who grew up with video games, engaging with these performers and playing along with their characters feels entirely natural—it draws on a familiar mode of interaction in digital spaces.

At an aquarium in Changchun, Jilin Province, Lou Tingge plays Ao Bing (a dragon prince in traditional Chinese mythology), a role he landed almost by chance. A mechanical engineering graduate who served five years in the military while at university, he faced repeated setbacks in his post-graduation job search and earned a living as a print model. A manager spotted him during a promotional shoot. After completing his probation, Lou signed a labor contract and has now held the job for over a year. With no ready-made template for portraying a member of the dragon clan, his look required careful development—the wig, headdress, costume, and shoes all had to be individually adjusted and refined.

As tourism consumption evolves, tourists are increasingly concerned with the quality of an experience rather than its mere availability, observed Han Yuanjun, head of the Strategy Institute of the China Tourism Academy. He sees this as a new stage in mass tourism. The rise of NPCs both responds to visitors’ growing expectations and creates fresh demand by offering new experiences. Through these performers, tourism companies are broadening their offerings beyond sightseeing to include interactive experiences and emotional engagement.

Lasting success takes expertise

Many visitors are initially drawn to Lou because of Ao Bing, but repeated face-to-face interactions gradually turn fans into friends, forging a close emotional bond with a performer who was once a complete stranger.

Wang Yusu sees these enduring connections as a way of compensating for, and easing, a shared sense of loneliness. A defined setting and an established character give two strangers a framework for a safe, entertaining exchange. Within that fictional framework, visitors can express themselves and their feelings freely and receive an immediate response. They become active participants in the unfolding story, receiving the attention and responses that passive spectators seldom enjoy.

Whether that connection lasts depends on whether the NPC can continue offering worthwhile interactions. Zhang Zheng, vice dean of the School of Journalism and Communication at Tsinghua University, argues that emotional engagement is itself a product whose quality depends on the professional knowledge and skills underpinning the performance. Playing a physician requires knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine and medicinal substances, while portraying a historical figure means being prepared to field visitors’ wide-ranging questions.

At Xi’an’s Grand Tang Mall, the NPCs playing Fang Xuanling and Du Ruhui, celebrated chancellors of the Tang Dynasty, engage visitors in quizzes, effortlessly quoting poetry, drawing on historical allusions, and responding deftly to visitors’ answers. Some visitors even memorize banks of questions and travel to Xi’an specifically to take part. Such ease before a crowd reflects extensive knowledge built up behind the scenes.

Performers’ personal followings have also become part of how scenic areas operate. According to Lou, many scenic areas encourage NPCs to run their own social media accounts, using their online reach to attract visitors. Wang Yusu explains: “An NPC with a striking look and quick wits is naturally suited to fermenting online. A brilliant answer lasting a few dozen seconds spreads fast as a short video, drawing more visitors to come and try the experience—this is becoming a vogue.” Online popularity brings a character to a wider audience, while professionalism sustains that appeal.

Rules lag behind

Yet some scenic areas are becoming increasingly alike, staging the same characters, similar scripts, and identical interaction routines. The rush to copy the NPC format reflects both its commercial promise and the tourism market’s impatience for quick returns. That impatience stems from managers’ and planners’ inability, or unwillingness, to explore local history and culture in depth. Intent on making “quick money,” scenic areas rely on familiar figures with established followings, reproducing their performances by rote in pursuit of short-term returns.

Ye Xu, an associate professor at the Institute of Western China Economic Research at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, identifies three levels of visitor expectations. At the first, “someone performing” transforms passive sightseeing into an interactive experience. The second, “performing truthfully,” requires interactions to complement the scenic area’s core offering and have substance. The third, “having culture,” calls for performances rooted in local conditions, giving each character a distinctive identity and cultural depth.

Less visible problems arise behind the scenes. Lou signed a labor contract with the scenic area, but elsewhere, NPC performers are hired through outsourcing arrangements, part-time or temporary employment, or project-based contracts, often without standardized employment practices. As performances grow livelier, backstage irregularities and disputes become harder to overlook. Zhang attributes some disputes to subjective evaluation criteria: performers cannot cater to every age group’s preferences or please every visitor, and the impact of an interaction is difficult to quantify. These ambiguities can easily lead to employment disputes.

Supporting development of new profession

During this year’s “two sessions”—the annual meetings of China’s top legislature, the National People’s Congress, and the top political advisory body, the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference—Wu Guoping, a deputy to the National People’s Congress, proposed establishing clear occupational standards and career paths for NPC performers in scenic areas. He also called for considering the profession’s inclusion in the occupational classification list under a title such as “cultural tourism immersive interactive experience specialist.”

Recognition in the occupational classification list requires a sufficiently large workforce and a distinct, established set of professional competencies and skills, followed by expert review and public consultation. According to Wang Tianyu, a research fellow at the Institute of Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, however, the more urgent priority is to protect performers’ basic legal rights and interests. Regardless of whether NPC performance is recognized as a profession, an employment relationship should be assessed under the law and according to actual working arrangements—including whether performers work at a fixed venue, are subject to management, and have set duties and hours. Where those arrangements constitute an employment relationship, employers should sign labor contracts and meet obligations such as making social insurance contributions.

Local governments are also exploring ways to support the profession. Cheng Ling, deputy director of the Quzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism, told CSST that Quzhou combines encouragement for innovation with regulatory guidance. Scenic areas are encouraged to draw on local cultural resources, including Southern Confucian heritage and Song-Dynasty aesthetics, to develop characters such as “Grandpa Confucius” and the “Three Oddities of Quzhou,” and to involve local arts troupes in creative development and performances. Alongside these efforts, the city regularly surveys NPC operations across Quzhou, strengthens oversight of performers and crew, and closely monitors the content of performances.

For NPC performance to mature into a profession, it must prove commercially viable, culturally meaningful, and institutionally supported. That means continuing to create value, carrying forward cultural traditions, and ensuring that institutions safeguard every practitioner’s legal rights. Its status as a profession will ultimately depend on whether it can endure beyond the initial wave of online attention.

Edited by YANG LANLAN