A 37-year-old Chinese sailor named Zhang Changchui spent several days filming his daily life aboard a vessel held up in the Strait of Hormuz (the narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the Arabian Sea), sharing 18 videos on the Chinese social media platform Douyin that attracted nearly 100,000 followers. His footage showed tankers stretching to the horizon and explained the crew's helplessness, with the ship's controls locked in a standstill position as they awaited clearance to pass. The videos, which covered topics ranging from his cabin routine to the financial impact on shipowners and crew wages, stopped without explanation last week, as hundreds of vessels and thousands of sailors remain stranded following a U.S.-imposed blockade of Iranian ports that took effect on 13 April.