Meet the 'huapiao': China's drifters from abroad

Expatatriate Austin Guidry[Photo provided to China Daily]

There are some in the expatriate community that not only make themselves pretty much at home in China but also get noticed by Chinese.

Austin Guidry, an English lecturer at Tianjin Foreign Studies University, is one such person. In 2014, he became very popular online due to his video series titled Eat All of the Things. In it, he was shown trying different local snacks. In one video, he even tried to drink a bitter Chinese medicine.

The series, made by the 26-year-old during Chinese New Year in 2014, was viewed more than 3 million times on Youku, China's answer to Youtube, and received more than 7,000 comments. His Sina Weibo micro blog handle now has more than 110,000 followers.

His videos are interesting to watch, especially for Chinese people who are keen to find out what foreigners think of Chinese snacks such as pickled chicken claws, stinky tofu (bean curd), Chinese sausages and other small eats that exist mainly in China or were born here.

"I called it Eat All of the Things because I thought that was a more interesting title than 'A fat white guy eats Chinese food," Guidry says.