Winston Sterzel, and Matthew Tye have done what most of us only dream of doing – traversing 5,000km across southern China on ramshackle, handmade motorcycles, stopping to sample the most unique local dishes, filming every moment of their adventure. The pair of Shenzhen based Youtube vloggers – who go by SerpentZA and Laowhy86, respectively – recently worked with Beijing based editors Richard Afonso and Mark Masterton, turning their footage into a series called "Conquering Southern China," which is now streaming on Vimeo on demand.
Afonso and Masterton both have backgrounds in broadcasting, and they filmed a documentary about SerpentZA as part of a series called "South Africans in China," for CRI. Masterson tells TBJ: "SerpentZA and Laowhy86 are relatively popular vloggers on China, with almost 100,000 subscribers between them. We learned about an annual bike adventure they do across China so we decided to make it into a TV show ... showcasing 'the real China' that most foreigners don't get to see."
In a trailer for the series, Sterzel, and Tye eat fried hornets, chat up villagers nearly floor length hair who have substituted shampoo with their own fragrant natural concoction, catch fish by hand in Guangxi, and more, all the while capturing the lush green terrain and wide open blue skies that Southern China's hallmarks.
Click here to watch the trailer, and to find out more about streaming the paid-for episodes (all four segments can be rented for a 72 hour streaming period for USD 5.99).
Photos: Sterzel and Tye