David Gulasi
Print Edition
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.
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