Yangguang News Launches Global Youth AI-Generated Tang Poetry Video Campaign as Schools Explore New Approaches to Integrating AI and Traditional Culture

Xi’an, China, Oct. 29, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A global short-video campaign titled “A True Friend Remains Close at Heart, Though Miles Apart — Me, Tang Poetry, and AI,” organized by Yangguang News and coordinated by its educational new media platform “Youth and Homeland Letters,” is gaining momentum. Teachers and students from Shaanxi University of Technology, Xi’an Weibei Middle School, Xi’an Gaoxin No. 1 Experimental High School, and other institutions have actively participated, combining Tang poetry studies with AI technologies. Using AI-generated artwork, video production, voiceovers, and editing tools, participants are transforming classical poetry into creative digital videos, exploring new ways to integrate traditional Chinese culture into education through digital technology.

As the global youth short-video campaign “A True Friend Remains Close at Heart, Though Miles Apart: Me, Tang Poetry, and AI” continues, young people from different educational levels are drawing on poetry as their foundation, transforming Tang poetry, with its thousand-year history, into vivid images and moving videos. Organized by Yangguang News and undertaken by the educational new media platform “Youth and Homeland Letters”, the campaign has attracted active participation and creative contributions from teachers and students at institutions including Shaanxi University of Technology, Xi’an Weibei Middle School and Xi’an Gaoxin No. 1 Experimental High School. Through hands-on creative practice, participants are exploring the meaning of poetry, deepening their understanding of culture and demonstrating the vitality of innovative expressions of traditional culture.

Shaanxi University of Technology: Putting AI at the Service of Poetry and Telling China’s Stories Through the Imagery of Tang Poetry

At Shaanxi University of Technology, the Student Affairs Department has used the campaign as a platform for cultural education and practical innovation, encouraging students to move from reciting Tang poetry to understanding and creating it. Qin Shaoxuan, the project coordinator, guided students throughout the creative process, emphasizing the principles of “understand the poem before using the technology; establish the idea before creating the visuals.” Students were encouraged to examine poetic imagery in depth and appreciate its emotional nuances, ensuring that technology served the poetry.

Liu Xinyu based her work on Li Bai’s The Phoenix Terrace at Jinling. By incorporating negative prompts such as “no modern buildings” and “no science fiction style,” she adjusted the visuals line by line and carefully refined the voice-over pacing and background music to recreate the grandeur of the High Tang era and its sentiments toward the country.

Su Bingjie focused on Meng Haoran’s Visiting an Old Friend’s Cottage, using an elegant ink-wash style inspired by the High Tang period and understated compositions with ample blank space to convey the warmth of everyday life amid the rising smoke from a rural kitchen. She also incorporated the classic English translation by Xu Yuanchong, balancing poetic expression with international communication.

Qin Shaoxuan summarized four key lessons from the experience: put culture first and technology to use; give creativity room to flourish; provide more opportunities for showcasing and exchanging ideas; and integrate aesthetic education with ideological and civic education.

In her view, AI is merely a tool. What truly moves audiences is young people’s love of poetry and their genuine desire to share China’s stories with the world.

Xi’an Weibei Middle School: A Four-Dimensional Approach to Integrating Poetry and AI, as Young People Reinterpret Classics Through Video

Xi’an Weibei Middle School advocates an educational approach that integrates technology and the humanities, fostering a creative environment that encourages exploration and allows room for trial and error.

Teacher Zhou Limi introduced a “four-dimensional guidance approach.” First, students analyze the artistic conception of a poem and identify its central imagery and emotional progression. Next, they select accessible tools such as Doubao, Jimeng AI and Jianying. Teachers then use open-ended questions to expand students’ creative thinking. Finally, practical activities are organized at different levels so that students with varying levels of experience can all produce works they are satisfied with.

Zhou emphasized that the campaign aims to enhance students’ overall competencies, including cultural inheritance, interdisciplinary integration and aesthetic judgment.

Teacher Lin Bingzi adheres to the principle that “AI is the brush, but people are the ones who wield it.” She places particular emphasis on developing students’ aesthetic judgment and encourages teachers to treat instances in which AI-generated content goes off track as opportunities for learning. She recommends designing activities with a low barrier to entry but substantial room for advanced exploration, allowing mistakes to become stepping stones to growth.

Students have produced works with distinctive approaches. Ren Yilin divided Du Fu’s life into four periods, using poetry to connect the poet’s concerns for his country and people. Through repeated revisions, Ren sought to present a more authentic portrait of the poet revered as the “Poet Sage.”

Luo Chenxi used Li Bai’s Invitation to Wine to express youthful ambition and boldness, adjusting AI-generated movements and lighting frame by frame to preserve the poem’s free-spirited character.

Wu Junteng focused on a landmark in his hometown, using a poem by Cen Shen to portray the grandeur of the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda and the spirit of the High Tang era, enabling young audiences overseas to discover the cultural heritage of Chang’an.

Xi’an Gaoxin No. 1 Experimental High School: Educating Through Poetry and Bringing Classics to Life for a New Generation

Teachers and students in the first and second years of high school at Xi’an Gaoxin No. 1 Experimental High School have incorporated the campaign into their Chinese language classes without adding to students’ extracurricular workload, advancing their creative projects in stages.

Teacher Liu Huan follows the principle that “the artistic conception of Tang poetry is the soul, and AI technology is the bridge.” She guides students to understand the text and analyze its imagery before translating their interpretations into prompts that AI can understand. The process focuses on developing students’ textual interpretation, cross-media expression and cultural empathy.

Teacher Gao Bing uses the metaphor of Pao Ding Jie Niu—the skilled butcher who effortlessly dissects an ox—to emphasize the importance of understanding a poem before applying technology. Gao also provides a list of AI tools and upholds clear cultural boundaries to ensure that students neither distort the meaning of the poetry nor resort to vulgar forms of expression.

Zhao Ziyue, a student in Class 6 of the first year of high school, chose Li She’s Poems on the Monk's House at Helin Temple, focusing on the shift in state of mind from confusion to acceptance and relief.

She overcame challenges posed by AI video length limits and the difficulty of matching generated visuals to the poem’s artistic conception. By refining prompts and adjusting color tones and lighting, she brought the temple, bamboo grove and emotional atmosphere of the poem together naturally.

Recommending the poem to young people overseas, she said: “This poem contains the wisdom of everyday life valued by Chinese people. When you face difficulties with a different mindset, you may discover a different kind of light.”

From universities to secondary schools, and from Chang’an to the wider world, young people are using AI as their brush and poetic imagery as their ink, transforming classical works with a thousand-year history into expressions of youth for a new era through repeated experimentation.

The campaign not only brings Tang poetry to life through video, but also allows cultural confidence to take root through the creative process. “Youth and Homeland Letters” welcomes more schools and young people to join this dialogue across a millennium, helping more young people around the world discover China’s enduring cultural heritage through the integration of technology and the humanities.

Han Wentao, 416654849@qq.com