Tragic: Chinese Official Dies After Falling from Horse While Filming Agricultural Promotional Video

On February 14, foreign media reported a tragic incident in China where a female director from the Xinjiang autonomous region died after falling from a horse during a local agricultural product promotional video shoot. The victim was He Jialong, 47, the director of the Xinjiang Agricultural Brand and Marketing Development Center since 2023. The incident occurred in mid-January while she was filming a video to promote an agricultural e-commerce project in the Mongolian Bortala region of Xinjiang. She fell from the horse, suffered a severe head injury, and passed away after being taken to the hospital. Previously, He was one of the first Chinese government officials to become an online influencer. In 2020, a viral video of her riding a horse in a red outfit across a vast snowy field garnered over 600 million views, earning her nicknames like 'Horse-Riding Mayor' and 'Bravest Tourism Director'. In 2021, her online reputation helped generate over 140 million yuan (approximately 627 million baht) in agricultural product sales and created more than 2,000 jobs. This was not her first riding accident - in July 2020, she had previously fallen while filming, though she was saved that time. She had stated that her husband worried about her overworking and her mother had warned her to stop filming, but she believed it was worth it to create good work for her hometown. Beyond horse riding, she had also done dramatic promotional stunts like sitting on a suspended bed over 100 meters high to promote Xinjiang cotton. The incident has sparked discussions about 'neijuan' (intense internal competition) among government officials using social media to promote local tourism and products, with critics arguing they should focus more on concrete improvements rather than social media image-building.