The latest issue published by Jerry Guo, an American Jew and a well-known video blogger, stays on the discussion of "using the silt of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal to make a Mexican bread kiln".
Jerry Guo and his cat. Courtesy of respondents
Jerry Guo, formerly known as Jerry Kowal, an American Jew, has been uploading short videos on Station B since 2017 to introduce the trivia of American life and experience Chinese food... In the video, he loves spicy, Chinese pronunciation is somewhat unclear, but it does not affect the fans' love for him, "Guo Tieju" and "Guo Cone" ("Jerry" even read as "cone") are fans' love names for him.
American children especially love the Chinese New Year
He became popular on the Internet because he was good at shooting videos about the differences between China and the United States, and at present, it is the traditional Chinese New Year festival, and he has also chosen to go to the countryside to spend an authentic "Chinese New Year".
"I know the Chinese New Year, in the United States, every year there will be celebrations during the Spring Festival, especially in Chinatown, where there will be activities and performances with Chinese cultural colors such as light car parades, dragon and lion dances, and paper cannons." Recently, Guo Jerry said in an exclusive interview with a reporter from China News Agency that during the Spring Festival, not only Chinese people living in the United States, but also people of other ethnic groups will gather in Chinatown to celebrate, and many American shopping malls will also post "Happy New Year" slogans and display lights everywhere.
Jerry Guo recording a video. Courtesy of respondents
The same is the New Year, whether it is a foreign Christmas or China's Spring Festival is a family reunion day, so there will be a lot of similar small New Year customs, "for example, everyone will gather at home to eat, and will not choose the outside restaurant, the United States Christmas will prepare Christmas gifts for children, China's elders will also give children 'pressure money'", in Guo Jerry's view, the biggest difference is probably the number of days of holiday, "China's Spring Festival has 7 days of holiday, Christmas is only 1 day, happy is too short."
You must not have thought that American children especially love the Chinese Spring Festival, "because at Christmas, the streets are not so lively, but the Spring Festival is very lively." In New York, the Spring Festival is a legal holiday, the school will be a holiday, many American children will go to Chinatown to see the dragon dance and lion dance, you can also set off firecrackers, of course, paper firecrackers, there is no Martian kind", Guo Jerry said that if he let him come to be China's Spring Festival promotion ambassador, then he will definitely start from the perspective of children, introduce them to the Fun activities during the Spring Festival, such as paper cutting, learning calligraphy, pasting the Spring Festival, and decorating the home with red-hot fire. In addition, he will introduce some simple methods of traditional Chinese cuisine, so that parents and children can participate together.
In college, Guo Jierui came to Taiwan as an exchange student for a few months to study, and since then, he has fallen in love with Chinese culture and Chinese cuisine, claiming to be more spicy than Sichuanese, and often commenting on food in videos as "spicy is not spicy" as the standard.
Courtesy of respondents
Recalling how he first embarked on the road of video bloggers, Guo Jierui said that about 5 years ago, he found that many chinese networks were not very accurate about the introduction of the United States, "for example, many people think that Americans read for free and medical treatment is free, but this is not the case." Reading is free because people pay high taxes, and medical treatment is free because they buy expensive health insurance," Guo Jerry said, saying that the original intention of shooting the video was to let more Chinese see a real America and show the facts to the public with the lens.
Gradually, from the introduction of the United States, Jerry Guo began to pay attention to the differences between China and the United States, whether it is cultural or economic life, "My topics are generally from the audience and fans' questions, everyone is curious, we go to investigate what, we go to shoot, everything is audience-centric."
During the outbreak of the new crown epidemic in 2020, Guo Jerry recorded the production of "Overseas Anti-epidemic Diary" in the form of a short video, not only interviewing on the streets of the United States, visiting American hospitals, but also discussing the causes of the outbreak in the United States, each of which has millions of views. He is famous for his hard-core explanation of the current situation in the United States under the epidemic, but behind it "I am under great pressure and very confused", "the epidemic, anti-epidemic, vaccines, masks, these are originally scientific problems, but I don't know how to evolve into political issues in the United States." The report on the fight against the epidemic is obviously about science, but others seem to have become a matter of value position", during that time, the only way for Guo Jerry to relieve the pressure was to insist on only telling the facts, "because only facts can stand the test".
Through him, we learned about China that we did not know
He introduced us to Yunnan coffee.
A wind shooting in Pu'er City, Yunnan Province, made him associate with Yunnan coffee. The large area of coffee land made Guo Jerry wonder, "There are many coffee shops in China's big cities, but generally only Brazilian coffee, Ethiopian coffee, why have you never heard of Yunnan coffee?" ”
Driven by curiosity, he and his team investigated the quality of coffee beans in Yunnan and the income of local coffee farmers and found that it was a grossly undervalued industry.
These Yunnan coffee beans, high quality, mainly for Starbucks, Nestle, Mai's, Kraft and other international brands supply, these high-quality coffee beans are sent to foreign packaging and processing, and then affixed with big brand trademarks sold to the Yunnan market, many Yunnan locals do not know, many imported coffee is actually produced in Yunnan.
Simply put, you think you are buying imported coffee, which is actually a high-quality domestic coffee.
"So we want to build a coffee brand that only buys Yunnan coffee, let more people know Yunnan coffee, and want to help Yunnan coffee farmers live a better life, and then there is Fibo coffee."
After several years of operation, Fibo Coffee is still progressing relatively smoothly, "In the past two years, many well-known brands have also joined the ranks of promoting the development of the coffee industry in Yunnan, and we feel that this is a good start."
On the details page of Fibo Coffee, it is marked with the following paragraph: For every product sold by Fibo Coffee, 1 yuan will be deposited into the poor student assistance program in the coffee planting area of Yunnan. These funds will be used to improve educational materials, improve the teaching environment and increase local enrolment.
When asked where he was most impressed with China, he introduced us to a "paradise".
In the depths of Daliangshan in Sichuan, there is a village on the cliff at an altitude of more than 1500 meters - Atulel Village, but people remember it as another name, "Cliff Village", Guo Jerry likes it very much, "I especially like the 'cliff village' of Daliangshan, which tests your willpower very much."
The willpower in Jerry's mouth refers to climbing the iron staircase of the "cliff village", "in some places the steepness is as fast as 90 degrees, we spent 4 hours climbing up, and then 3 hours climbing down".
Through visiting the cliff village, he also learned about China's poverty alleviation methods, "poverty alleviation is a topic that the whole world is talking about, but how to help it is a difficult problem." "In the United States, we generally send money and food directly, but in China I see another way to alleviate poverty, that is, to improve infrastructure, improve local education, and increase some industries so that local people have more employment opportunities." It's a way to be expensive, difficult to operate, but with great long-term returns."
"I especially enjoy observing and understanding the differences in our values."
Many people on the Internet are used to calling him "Treasure Boy", some people call him "food blogger", more people love to call him "foreign Internet celebrity", but Guo Jerry's positioning of himself has always been "cultural blogger", "because this (the identity of cultural bloggers) can let everyone see the colorful world, human history has developed for tens of thousands of years, people in each country have many differences, we are not only different nationalities, different appearances, different languages, the most important thing is that our way of thinking and values are also different." We should not impose our own culture and values on others, nor should we use our own way of thinking to speculate on the ideas of others, only by understanding and respecting the culture of others can people communicate better and coexist in peace. ”
If there's anything he's curious about About China, it used to be food and scenery, and now it's the way China's economy and society operate and how people get along. "In China, everyone is particularly concerned about the protection of basic life, eating well, living well, and being in good health are the basic needs of everyone, but many people in the United States do not think so, and the values of many people in the United States think that the 'right not to wear a mask' is more important than 'getting sick', which is a very interesting thing, and I need more time to experience and understand the difference in values."
Author: Li Qiuying, Li Jiajia
Source: China News Service