Honglaowai ( zh, s=红老外, l=red foreigner), also known as Red Laowai, is an

internet celebrity An Internet celebrity (also known as a social media influencer, social media personality, internet personality, or simply influencer) is a celebrity who has acquired or developed their fame and notability through the Internet. The rise of social ...

popular in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

and within

overseas Chinese Overseas Chinese () refers to people of Chinese birth or ethnicity who reside outside Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. As of 2011, there were over 40.3 million overseas Chinese. Terminology () or ''Hoan-kheh'' () in Hokkien, refe ...

communities. He quickly became famous as a

Caucasian Caucasian may refer to: Anthropology *Anything from the Caucasus region ** ** ** ''Caucasian Exarchate'' (1917–1920), an ecclesiastical exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Caucasus region * * * Languages * Northwest Caucasian l ...

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

singing Chinese patriotic songs in videos that he uploaded to numerous Chinese

video-sharing An online video platform (OVP), provided by a video hosting service, enables users to upload, convert, store and play back video content on the Internet, often via a structured, large-scale system that may generate revenue. Users will generally u ...

sites like Tudou,

Youku Youku Tudou Inc. (formerly Youku Inc.), doing business as Youku (), is a video hosting service based in Beijing, China. It operates as a subsidiary of Alibaba Group Holding Limited. Youku has its headquarters in the Sinosteel Plaza in Haidian ...

, 56, etc. Frequently featured on the front page of these sites, and attracting millions of views, he drew the attention of the media in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the

Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. Along with th ...

, and Europe. He has given multiple interviews to newspapers and television stations and is a topic of discussion by the media.

Videos

Honglaowai's first video, singing " Without the Communist Party, There Would Be No New China" (), was uploaded to several video-sharing websites on November 7, 2007, as a celebration of the 90th anniversary of the October Revolution. It featured Honglaowai singing topless against a white wall with a photo of Mao Zedong. In the following two weeks, he released three more videos that featured similar setups and in which he sang " The East Is Red" (), "My Chinese Heart" (), and "March of the People's Liberation Army" ().

Popular perception

Despite the controversies that Honglaowai has created, he remains popular with the public in China. The media has described his audience as thinking of him as "cute" and "handsome". His fans have set up several fan websites and pages dedicated to him.

Clothing controversy

Because Honglaowai was not wearing a shirt in his first several videos, this caused a controversy among China's online community and China's media. Several newspaper articles questioned whether his singing of traditional

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

songs were meant as an insult to the Chinese Government or as art. ''

People's Daily The ''People's Daily'' () is the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The newspaper provides direct information on the policies and viewpoints of the CCP. In addition to its main Chinese-language ...

'', the organ of the Communist Party of China initially called for the screening of websites that show Honglaowai's videos. Several online polls also appeared asking whether Honglaowai was offensive to China. In his blog entry dated November 20, 2007, he explained that his intention had not been to insult China. "True communists say that it is not clothes, but ideas that are the most important!", he stated. In his subsequent videos, he was no longer seen shirtless. He made cover versions of patriotic and Communist Chinese songs, songs by Taiwanese stars Jay Chou and Jolin Tsai, and others. His video "Injury of Ceasefire" (), an anti-war rap song originally performed by Jay Chou, has been seen more than 4 million times on the Chinese video-sharing sites.

Personal life

The Honglaowai pseudonym was created by George Costow, a 30-year-old Wall Street investment banker, graduate of Princeton University, and resident of the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. His videos often feature buildings and streets situated in New York, such as the World Trade Center site. On his blog, and in his interviews, he states that he has learned Chinese by himself, and that he had not been to Mainland China yet. Honglaowai announced on his blog that he would visit Mainland China for the first time on June 13, 2008. He was interviewed by

a week after arriving and performed a Cultural Revolution "Loyal to Mao" dance on Nanjing Road in Shanghai. After the closing of Lehman Brothers, Mr Costow aka Honglaowai, discontinued his Sina blog.

References

External links