Canadian bridges language gap online

CHONGQING－Darby Cumming from Canada, who now lives in Southwest China's Chongqing, is an online influencer with around 8 million followers on Chinese short-video platforms.

However, from the bottom of his heart, he still considers himself an English teacher, the job he got when he first came to Chongqing in 2017.

Yearning to see the world and experience a different life, he quit his job at the University of Manitoba in Canada and moved to Chongqing.

He fell in love with the Chinese metropolis at once. The dramatic difference between Chongqing's mountainous terrain and his hometown's flat landscape amazed him.

But soon, while working at a local training institution, the young man found that only a few students could afford his classes, as one 50-minute lesson cost more than 400 yuan ($63).

In a bid to reach more people, Cumming began to use Chinese short-video platform Douyin, the domestic version of TikTok, to teach viewers some simple English free of charge and share his daily life in China.

With his sense of humor, he not only developed a fan base but also attracted some collaboration partners.

Cumming's first video garnered about 300,000 likes, propelling him to overnight viral success. It made him realize this could be another platform for him to teach students more inclusively and affordably.

The Canadian now also translates classic Chinese poems into English and displays these poems on social media.

"The thing that touched me the most is that once I gave my phonetic lessons to fans for free, I found some teachers in rural areas played my videos for local children. That's when I began to feel what I was doing has meaning," he says.

Cumming borrowed the idea from his mother, who has dedicated her life to improving the reading skills of children in rural Canada.

"We believe that education is for all," says the young man. "Also, my mother keeps telling me how education can change a child's life."

He has recently registered a TikTok account to teach Mandarin and show Chinese culture to an overseas audience. After posting only 12 videos, he already has over 120,000 followers.

"Many people think I am exaggerating the good sides of China, but I am just showing the facts," says Cumming.

The Canadian will stick to English teaching in China and Mandarin for foreigners online. He believes that more people can learn about the real China through people-to-people exchanges via these platforms.

Xinhua