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After Bilibili's Fu Linfang, another Briton has emerged as the latest social media celebrity — Greg Fountain, a talented host from China Daily.
The 30-year-old video journalist is the presenter of the "
Good Luck China
" series of short videos, which have been an instant hit on Chinese social media once released.
The videos — all of which are produced by the China Daily new media team — can garner as many as 50 million hits per episode.
Now, Fountain has made the national news, appearing on the leading evening news program on CCTV 1 and a documentary program on the same channel.
It is, however, the light style Fountain carries in those videos that captured people's attention and also earned him the nickname,
Yingguo Xiaoge
, or English little brother.
"I think the key word is accessibility. A lot of the time — especially with politics — the language can be very dry and quite difficult for people to relate," he says.
Fountain, unassuming and modest despite his new fame, was speaking in the lobby of China Daily, where he has worked for a year and a half.
Fountain was first employed as a copy editor on the national news desk upon arriving in China from Bahrain, where he was deputy news editor of the Gulf Daily News.
When he just began working at the paper, Fountain was assigned to make a
video
for the annual sessions of the National People's Congress, the national legislature, and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the top political advisory body, in Beijing.
"We did this in Tian'anmen Square with me holding a selfie stick reading from a bit of paper taped behind the phone. I was trying my best to look into the camera," he laughs.
Nonetheless, the film proved an enormous success, receiving 10 million hits in total across multiple platforms, including China Daily Weibo, WeChat, and Facebook.
It came out at a time when there seemed to be an appetite for light but informative films. For instance,
Song of Shisanwu
, a video about the 13th Five Year-Plan (2016-20) gained a lot of publicity.
Since then, Fountain has made a number short videos about China. The topics range from
Chinese tea culture
,
China's railways
,
telecommunications
,
the 90th anniversary of the People's Liberation Army
.
His most recent work addressed China's attempts to
fight back against desertification
in Saihanba on the Hebei province-Inner Mongolia autonomous region border, and that's what got him on CCTV.
"I was standing on the watch station, and there were just trees to the horizon as far as the eye could see. The forest was about the size of Hong Kong in terms of land coverage."
His most-watched video so far was about this year's two sessions, which used green screen technology to create a mini Fountain walking on a desk.
"The mini me got a mention on the BBC and other media outlets," he says. "In terms of production standards, it was much more sophisticated than the first one we produced, which was a lot rougher."
Thanks to those films, now Fountain often gets recognized on the streets.
"A couple of times I have noticed, even going into a supermarket, people taking pictures on their iPhones, so I am pretty sure they recognize me from the videos," Fountain laughs.
Unlike many broadcasters from the United Kingdom, Fountain does not speak in Received Pronunciation but his native Yorkshire accent of the north of England.
"From what I have read — there have been studies in the UK — the Yorkshire and Scottish accents are among the most trusted British accents," he says.
Fountain was brought up in Birdwell, a village near Barnsley in South Yorkshire. After graduating from Wath Comprehensive School, he studied English and history at Reading University.
Wanting to pursue a career in media, Fountain got his master's degree in print journalism at Sheffield University.
His first experience of working abroad came when he joined the Gulf Daily News in Bahrain in 2013.
"The place was simmering after the 'Arab Spring'. I spent the first eight months wearing out shoe leather as a reporter covering the funerals of policemen who had been killed by roadside IEDs (improvised explosive devices)," Fountain recalls.
He later became the paper's deputy news editor, where he was on call until midnight every other night, before accepting an offer to work for China Daily.
"The day before leaving Bahrain, I was sitting in the sun in shorts, T-shirt, and sunglasses. When I arrived in Beijing, it was -17 C. We arrived in the absolute bitter cold of winter. It was quite a shock."
Before he started at China Daily, Fountain had never been to China.
He has since settled in. He and his 29-year-old partner Maria, a former chef and now yoga teacher, have an 18-month-old mongrel rescue dog called Ponyo.
"People think it is called
pengyou
(the Chinese word for friend), but I named it after the Japanese animation film."
Fountain says he and his partner are studying Chinese online.
"It is probably the least effective way of studying. We are desperately trying to save up for our wedding in the UK in November, so we don't have the money to pay for lessons at the moment."
Apart from being a video journalist, Fountain is also a columnist for China Daily and has made his views known on a number of subjects, including the UK's decision to leave the European Union in last year's referendum.
"I never thought there should have been a vote in the first place. I believe it is damaging to the future of the country. I would love to be proved wrong, but I have seen nothing yet that contradicts that. I am glad not to be in Britain right now, but let's see."
For now, Fountain wants to carry on making films and explaining China to his fans.
"I love working at China Daily and in Beijing. I came here from Bahrain, a place with 1.3 million people, and here there are 1.3 billion. You could live in Beijing for a decade and still find things you haven't seen or done," he says.
"Anyone who takes an interest in the news has to take an interest in China because it's now a huge player in so many ways."
Which 'Good Luck China' video do you like most?
Audio and translation of the story is available on our WeChat mini-app
