Austin Guidry
Print Edition
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.”
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