An American expat living in Beijing may be the latest casualty of a Chinese media with a habit for altering how foreigners are perceived in China – all from using the same content.
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An American named "Tom" was one of the many expats featured in a 2014 Vice article that was titled "Not every foreigner in Beijing is a loser." Tom told Vice he was inspired to come to China after reading books by authors like Peter Hessler and Evan Osnos. Tom even said he wanted to live in the Gulou hutongs because Hessler once lived here.
"Gulou is my favorite area in Beijing because here you can see authentic hutongs and the lifestyle that goes with it," said Tom, adding that he even went to seek out the same people that were featured in Hessler's book, Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time.
But ever since Tom appeared in that story detailing the accomplishments of expats in Beijing, he has reappeared again, only this time Tom doesn't just like Gulou – he wants to promote it.
Tom is the focus of a new article published last month on Caixin's Why Enjoy lifestyle and living online magazine. Titled "How are you able to eat "'the world' at Gulou?", the article begins much the same as the Vice article and even uses many of the same quotes. In both articles, The 33-year-old American expat said that living in the hutong has helped him assimilate into Chinese culture by rhetorically asking: "How can you live in Gulou without speaking Chinese?"
But whereas Tom's segment ended in the Vice article at that point, the Why Enjoy article used Tom's hutong experience as a springboard to support newly unveiled opinions that other parts of Beijing just aren't as good as Gulou.
As Tom told Why Enjoy, he doesn't like the "embassy style" of Sanlitun because the restaurants are not authentic, their drinks are watered down, the wait staff want to be tipped for their bad service, and the traffic is congested. Furthermore, Tom discredits Shunyi as being "too far away" and isn't impressed with Wudaokou, asking: "What is there to talk about with a bunch of poor international students?"
One of the reasons the new article has gained popularity on the Chinese Internet is that Tom's dislike of other Beijing expat locales has prompted some Chinese media to republish this story under the new headline: "Why do Gulou laowai despise Sanlitun laowai?" much in the same vein as their recent fixation with why Beijing expats hate Shanghai expats, and vice versa.
Tom doesn't stop there. As seen in the Why Enjoy article, Tom provides a number of Gulou restaurant recommendations. Tom is quoted as saying local dining establishment Eatalia Carpe Diem is "a favorite homestyle Italian restaurant of mine" while he called Toast at the Orchid "my first go-to choice for having brunch."
And even though earlier in the article he described Sanlitun as being "expensive beyond reason," Tom named Gulou's Saffron as one of his favorite restaurants despite its average cost of RMB 252 (approximately USD 36) per customer.
So although Tom's words started out in 2014 as being in defense of Western expats living in Beijing, they have since become a fine dining recommendation on China's answer to Quora, Zhihu. Whether or not this is what Tom originally had in mind is hard to determine at the present time, but one thing this is not is plagiarism. That's because the author of the 2014 Vice article and this year's Why Enjoy article are the same person.
And yet, even though a writer named Xixi is responsible for writing both stories, a number of inconsistencies exist between them.
Back in 2014, Tom told Vice he had been living in the Gulou hutong for six years, but in this year's Why Enjoy article, Tom said he had been living in Gulou for seven years. Furthermore, Xixi said Tom is a personal acquaintance of hers, and gave personal anecdotes of his that happened this year such as an old man telling him he "hated [Donald] Trump." However, most of the content is lifted word-for-word from 2014 article, indicating the pair hadn't had a conversation since then.
In both articles, Tom referred to Hessler's book as a way to know when to leave the country he loves. "The time when I can't experience the things that I read in that book is the time I know it's time to say goodbye to China," said Tom, leading us to wonder if Hessler does restaurant reviews or not.
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Twitter: @Sinopath
Images: Why Enjoy