The Chinese Parents Dancing to Shake Their Kids’ Cancer Blues
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SIXTH TONE ×The Chinese Parents Dancing to Shake Their Kids’ Cancer Blues<br>With nightly dance marathons, a grieving father is helping parents of young cancer patients raise funds and find relief.
By White Night Workshop<br>Jan 07, 2026#first person#family#social media
Editor’s note: After losing his 5-year-old son to cancer in 2025, self-taught livestreaming coach Yang Zhipeng, who prefers to be known as “Douding’s Dad,” began helping parents with severely sick children make extra income by offering free training and organizing nightly, hours-long dance sessions, which are broadcast live on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, from a plaza in Jinan, capital of the eastern Shandong province. Here, the 40-year-old shares his story in his own words.<br>As soon as the song “Qinghai Shake” comes on, all 14 of us step into frame. It’s crucial we start our nightly livestream with a lot of dancers to boost energy and engagement.<br>We have three phones set up at the front of our makeshift dance floor, which is in a plaza about two kilometers from the Cancer Hospital of Shandong First Medical University, next to a statue of a bear holding a red heart. One phone is recording, another plays the music, and the third relays our livestream channel, “Little Fighters,” so that we can monitor and respond to audience interactions.<br>The parents are in two rows, with a “star” spot front and center. Whoever is in this spot needs to stay in frame at all times and thank viewers for any gifts and donations. They can’t even step out to get a sip of water.<br>Each livestream starts after 8 p.m. and lasts about four hours, with two sets of dancers across two sessions. Our star dancer tonight was Ziqi’s mom, who at 51 is the oldest member of the group. She’s not tall, but she has incredible energy. As she was dancing, she was calling out the screen names of viewers who had sent us hearts, badges, and other virtual gifts (Editor’s note: Channel owners on Douyin receive these gifts as currency).
“Qinghai Shake” was my son Douding’s favorite. When he was in the hospital, he spent a lot of time watching short videos of people performing the dance trend, swaying to the beat. The original choreography is quite difficult. Our group practiced for two months, but we still couldn’t get it right, so I simplified it into six sets of moves, making each more forceful and deliberate — and a bit clumsier. The sequence lasts 28 seconds, and we repeat it roughly 130 times an hour.<br>Before we start the livestream, you’ll see parents strapping on knee supports and applying herbal medicine plasters; some even take painkillers just to get through the night. We’ve had someone throw up before. No one has any formal dance training — we all have different styles. A viewer once described a particularly uncoordinated dad in the back row as “looking like a construction worker swinging a sledgehammer.”<br>We dance outdoors, so it’s hot in summer, and now the temperature has dropped below freezing. We don’t wear our jackets because they look clumsy. In winter, you have to start warming up straight away or the cold will cut right through you. I tell the group that we don’t need to be the best or most attractive dancers, we just need to be willing to push ourselves.<br>Most of our dancers are moms who care for their children during the day, although there are some dads who work as takeout delivery drivers. They have come to Jinan from all over China — many from rural areas — to seek treatment for their children, who have blastoma, a type of cancer that develops in immature cells.<br>The costs of surgery, chemotherapy, and medication mean money flows out like water. Our children need treatment, so we need to set our pride aside. Some of the group’s children are already in the advanced stages of their illness. We all know about the low survival rate for this form of cancer, but we don’t talk about that. As long as their child is still here, they allow themselves to feel hope.
Keep moving<br>Douding was diagnosed with hepatoblastoma, a rare form of liver cancer in children, on Dec. 13, 2023. He was 3 years and 9 months old.<br>My wife and I used to run a barbecue pork shop in Linyi, Shandong province, but we relocated to Shanghai when Douding got sick. Over the next eight months he underwent surgery and two rounds of anti-infection treatment, costing more than 600,000 yuan ($85,790). The doctor said his tumor had nearly completely filled his lungs and needed to be surgically removed. We were already almost out of money — we’d sold our car, jewelry, and restaurant, and had borrowed from everyone we could. It felt like the road ahead was suddenly blocked.<br>On July 1, 2024, Douding was admitted to the Cancer Hospital of Shandong First Medical University. We’d heard it had lots of experience treating...