CHINESE social media functions somewhat independently from the rest of the world. Instead of Twitter, there’s Weibo. Instead of Facebook, there’s Renren. And so it goes: YouTube is Youku; WhatsApp is WeChat and Quora is Zhihu.

While many Chinese fame-seekers try to vault the divide and promote themselves abroad on foreign websites, some expats in China are doing just the opposite. They are using China’s unique social media platforms to raise their profiles.

Shanghai Daily talked with three people now living in China who have embarked on the journey to become “Internet celebrities.”

Austin Guidry

AUSTIN Guidry from Texas is a typical “foodie” in the eyes of Chinese netizens. He has uploaded 115 videos on the website youku.com, mostly livestreaming himself trying various kinds of Chinese food.

Under the screen name Pang Lao Wai, which literally means “chubby foreigner,” Guidry has attracted more than 90,800 online followers. On Weibo, he has more than 120,000 followers, who know him as Lan Duo Lao Wai, or “lazy foreigner.”

“I started to make the videos because I noticed that not many foreigners made videos about food in China,” he said. “And I wanted to share with my family and friends back home what real Chinese food is like.”

Guidry came to China in 2011 to study Chinese and history at a university in the northwestern province of Gansu. After graduation, he worked at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in the city of Chengdu, before finding a new job in a training school.

Now based in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, Guidry said he is fond of many different types of Chinese food, including hotpot from Sichuan, noodles from Gansu and rice noodles from Hainan. His appraisals of foods unfamiliar to Westerners are often entertaining for Chinese views.

In a video where he tried the typical Beijing beverage dou zhi, a fermented drink made from ground beans, Guidry gagged after two sips. He described it as “one of the grossest drinks in the world,” tasting like “soy milk that has been stored for 25 years.”

The video received more than 2,500 comments. Most people said his reaction was quite “cute.”

But in general, Guidry is pretty open-minded about Chinese food. He was not afraid to try balut, a duck or chicken egg with a fledging inside it, although he did say it was one of the scariest things he ever put in his mouth.

“Actually, it was very, very good,” he later admitted.

Guidry actually first posted his videos on YouTube, and someone then reposted them on acfun.tv, a video website in China.

“Then one day, somebody told me, ‘Hey, Austin, you’re famous!’” he said. “So I started posting my videos on Youku.”

Guidry, however, said Youku is a poor imitation of YouTube.

“It is all about TV stars and traditional media,” he said. “It is very hard for common people to be successful on it.”

Meanwhile, Guidry said he loves Weibo, where he is in constant communications with followers.

“My favorite comment is when people say to me, ‘I went to that restaurant you went to because I saw your video, and it was great,’” he said. “Food can really bring people together.”

Negar Kordi

BORN in Canada, raised in Iran, Negar Kordi’s road to recognition has lurched from one extreme to another.

Now based in the coastal city of Ningbo in Zhejiang Province, she is a well-known fixture on Panda TV, one of the most popular self-broadcasting websites in China.

Kordi livestreams the online game “League of Legends,” using the screen name Wai Quo Xiao Gong Ju, which translates as “foreign princess.” She now has more than 14,000 followers on the website.

Under the Chinese name Lan Lan, Kordi started her celebrity path on Zhihu, a Quora-equivalent community. Because of her fluent Chinese and adept use of Chinese Internet language, she quickly attracted attention in the online community.

“I didn’t become aware that I was so popular until late last year,” said Kordi. “And I don’t know the reason for it.”

On the website, Kordi answers questions from online viewers on topics ranging from dining and culture to feminism and personal relationships. She shares some of her personal stories. Her humorous, often witty answers receive many “upvotes” from other users.

At first she was often asked if she came to China because her name was racist.

“They apparently confused Negar with ‘nigger,’” said Kordi. “But in fact, Negar means ‘beautiful and precious’ in Persian.”

Kordi said she came to China because she was fascinated by the Chinese language, especially its characters.

“When I was in Iran, I first studied Japanese and I liked Kanji very much, so I wanted to go to Japan,” she said. “But later people told me that the Chinese language is composed of all Kanji, so my fascination shifted. Besides, China is an emerging power full of opportunities. So I came here.”

Zhihu gives Kordi a great channel for communicating with grassroots Chinese. She said she reads every comment people write to her ­— praise, criticism and suggestions. People also often share their own moving stories with her.

“I remember there was one guy who was distraught because his mother was in an intensive care ward in hospital,” she said. “I tried to cheer him up. Later he thanked me for giving him support when he badly needed it.”

Kordi said she was hurt when her popularity aroused some online controversy. She said people started to attack her, claiming that she had a marketing team “hyping” her and that her answers on Zhihu were actually written by Chinese people. Some even suggested she was just a made-up identity who didn’t really exist.

“I wish that some people would talk less and think more,” she said, dismissing all the accusations as rubbish. “Nobody likes Internet violence.”

David Gulasi

ON Weibo, one of the biggest Chinese social media sites, the video of a man correcting people’s English recently resulted in more than 71,100 reblogs, 27,400 comments and 29,880 “likes.”
The uploader of the video was David Gulasi, an Australian native and president of the New World Language Training School in Hohhot, capital of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

In the video that catapulted Gulasi to the attention of Chinese netizens, he explained how Chinese students frequently misuse the word “play,” invoking it when they really mean “to hang out” with someone.

“After I posted the video, a lot of Chinese people messaged me and tagged me with funny pictures, and many of them for help with their homework,” he said. “It is crazy.”

Gulasi said he stayed in Hong Kong for four days recently and even there, people recognized him. “David, David, I want to ‘play’ with you,” he said they joked.

“This Weibo thing really created a stir, and it freaked me out,” he admitted.

The biggest attraction in Gulasi’s video, according to netizens, were his eyebrows. The constant dance-like movement of his brows when he talked created a comedic effect.

“People told me they turned off the sound on the video and just watched my eyebrows dancing,” Gulasi said, with a laugh.

The video also opened new doors for him. BTV, a local Beijing television network, asked him to co-host an English-language show with another expat, starting this month.

Gulasi said he left a career in Mediterranean cuisine seven years ago and came to China seeking new adventure.

He originally intended to settle in the city of Shenyang in the northeastern province of Liaoning, but when he landed, the agency handling his move dispatched him instead to Hohhot.

There he started to work at a language training school and later became its president. In his contact with Chinese, he said he encountered many funny experiences involving use of the English language, so he decided to collect a few of those stories and share them online.

He often recorded videos in his car before going to work in the morning. Sometimes, in order to double-check the Chinese words he used in the videos, he needed to record the footage multiple times.

“One time, a guy saw me talking to my phone in the car, and he gaped at me as though I were an idiot,” he said.

Apart from Weibo, Gulasi also used other Chinese social media apps. On QQ, a live chatting app, he met his wife.

“That was the first app I used here,” he said. “So, actually, Chinese social media introduced me to my wife. Now we have a baby girl and a nice family, and I have Chinese social media to thank for that.”

Gulasi said he will continue making small videos for Chinese students, but he wants to make them more “professional,” with better visual and sound elements.

He wants students to be able to learn English for free from his videos, rather than having to pay loads of money for language classes that many can’t really afford.

“I ultimately want to create something like a mini-series on social platforms rather than just on my phone,” he said.