You're listening to Roundtable with myself He Young.
I'm joined by Steve Hatherly and Dingheng in the studio.
Coming up, can you imagine your childhood crush teaching you English on short video platforms?
Movie star Daniel Wu or Wu Yanzhu just did.
His course videos have fans swooning.
Some call it the ultimate learn while you fangirl or boy moment.
Or is it just another celebrity cash grab?
And your voice matters and it would be great to hear it on our Heart to Heart segment.
Got a question? Something you're itching to share?
Fire up that voice memo and hit us up at Roundtablepodcast at qq .com.
Our podcast listeners can find us at Roundtablechina on Apple Podcast. Now let's switch it up.
Wyensu, or Daniel Wu, the American -Chinese actor and heartthrob who captivated a generation with films such as New Police Story, The Banquet and Tomb Raider, has now stepped into the world of online education.
Recently, Wu partnered with GoTo Education and launched Daniel Wu Teaches Spoken English English, an online course aimed at helping learners improve their English conversational skills.
In just 5 days, the course reportedly raked in over 5 million yuan while its Douyin Short Video account attracted 1 .6 million followers.
How are Chinese Internet users responding to their heartthrob from the 2000s?
Turning into an online English tutor?
I was excited Excited as well Yeah, yeah, yeah, and he's English class is priced at 398 yuan close to 55 US dollars for a 84 lessons each lesson lasting somewhere between 8 to 10 minutes These are are said to be recorded by himself covering conversational practices, pronunciation techniques, etc etc. Some users find these courses to be useful and reasonably priced because we're talking about 400 yuan for more than 80 lessons, right?
That's a pretty good deal, right?
Yeah I mean you see 398 yuan and you think oh that's not that cheap, but then you look oh 84 lessons at eight to ten minutes each, that's a pretty reasonable price, I would say.
Yeah, that's like $50 or a bit more than that.
$55, I checked. OK.
Good. You signed up already, I guess.
You didn't want him to know.
However, I have also heard about complaints about this low level of Wu's actual personal engagement in its actual content.
Because Daniel Wu's direct teaching time per lesson is only about five minutes.
The rest of the time in each lesson is actually covered by this gap to institutions on instructors and the A .I.
training feature, because the these programs they use the A .I.
over the integrated A .I.
into making this voice.
So another complaint is that the A .I.
training feature also are falling short of their expectations because They complain that these voices do not feature the actual Daniel Wu's actual voice.
Okay. Yeah, it's not exactly the same.
Yeah, I was reading about it.
So he'll be in some typical scenarios, like ordering a cup of coffee or checking into a hotel room.
and then he'll teach some English slang.
Hit the Books was an example, apparently practical and kind of fun for learners.
I read as well that he was talking about or teaching expressions from Nuja 2, which was Be Quick to Obey My Command was one of the sentences.
And I am the master of my destinies.
So he's grabbed a couple of sentences from the very popular film.
You know, I mean, he's a native English speaker, right?
He's a native speaker of English.
so you know kind of makes sense.
Yeah and I saw people liking the most popular comment in many of these videos.
That is, Daniel, I'm finding it hard to concentrate.
I can only focus on looking at your face, or the subtitle title as one.
He's a good -looking guy yeah you still got it yeah so why do celebrities sell online courses this time I think is this particular actors making quite the splash but this is not this is almost like a quite typical way of a side hustle for lots of celebrities especially if maybe they've passed their Prime mm -hmm I remember back in 2017 have Have you ever heard of Cameo?
You probably never heard of it.
It's okay. Cameo is a business that started in that year and they enlist stars and some of the stars are really famous, and some of them are, well they used to be famous.
Let's just put it like that.
And what they do is they produce these really short handheld smartphone videos kind of on demand and then you pay the stars to say something to you and a lot of people use that for happy birthday right so you can go to cameo you can find your celebrity and then ask them you know to say this thing and then they'll say it and they charge different prices for example have you remember NSYNC from the 1919 Yes, I do!
Right, well Lance Bass is on Cameo, or at least he used to be and it was $249 if you wanted him to say something to you.
And then there's other cheaper options, as well.
Actress Lindsay Lohan was about $50 and she she's just you know, they're just holding their smartphone.
They're not in a professional studio, it's just super casual.
That was about $50.
Or Snoop Dogg, Snoop Dogg was very expensive.
if he was like $750 or something like that, but it's the same it's not the same exactly the same, but it's a little similar in the sense you're talking about, you know, why are they doing this?
Is it just additional money for them?
I say, why not? Why not?
Why can't Snoop Dogg get $750 for saying happy birthday to somebody?
It's easy for them, that's not English education I know.
But it's, you know, I don't know if we should be criticized criticizing, you know, celebrities for doing this.
So my understanding is that these online courses so to speak, they actually provide a kind of scalable and sustainable or cost -effective model of making revenues.
This idea that they only need to record one particular course only once, but this course can be sold indefinitely.
that's the idea. And of course, personally, I am not in a position to judge whether Daniel Wu has passed his own showbiz golden period, but I think it generally could be the case that particularly for those actors and musicians who are facing career slowdowns because of aging or other issues or simply want to diversify their portfolio, this could be a particularly a useful strategy.
Well, I happen to know a little bit more about Daniel Wu.
He has, I think made the conscious decision to step back a little bit from the limelight in recent years.
He's moved back to the US and he's only, he's very picky about the projects he's doing.
So yeah, I think also for his fans, or I think they sort of accept that now is actually a good time to see what else can he do.
And also he's a certified architect too.
Oh cool, I didn't know that.
So he's like a really talented guy.
And if you look at those videos, yeah, at least there are plenty of videos for you to see, and it's like content made strictly for this particular online course.
And if you live in China, then you must have heard about fu -fei, ju -shu fu -fei in recent years.
It's more of this knowledge commerce concept that is so many of us.
You can argue this is maybe capitalizing on people's vulnerability in feeling that you need to learn more, study more, get more certificates to cope in this fast -changing economy.
and so many people use their leisure time to pay a few yuan or a few hundred yuan or maybe more to learn these online study these online courses.
It could be anything and you can find it online in the Chinese speaking world and this could just be the latest example of that.
Yeah I mean there are there are other pardon me there are other examples internationally, Masterclass I'm not sure if that's a well -known brand or not but that their model they have these really really big -name industry experts who teach things the master class model is you pay about a hundred and eighty dollars a year I think that's about the price of it that's about what one thousand three four hundred something like that you on and you have unlimited access so you can watch all these videos from all these different experts.
Who am I talking about?
Well, for example, Martin Scorsese, the famous filmmaker.
He teaches a class on filmmaking, Gordon Ramsay, the famous chef.
He has a master class on cooking.
You can get tennis tips from Serena Williams. Now the difference in their model is that it's almost like you're watching a documentary or a film when in fact you're just watching them teach a class.
It's very Hollywood style, the cinematography, and it is really fantastic, right?
It's something you could watch in the theater.
It's immersive, it's storytelling included as well, but it's expensive, and I signed up for a year to masterclass, as a matter of fact.
Do you remember the Queen's Gambit?
Okay, the drama about the chess like genius, right?
You know chess boomed after that because of the popularity of that show I signed up for a chess masterclass with I think his name is Gary Kasparov thinking I'm going to be the next chess genius in the world.
I could see the headlines in front of me and I'm watching his lesson and he's just telling stories about different times that he won tournaments and I'm like come on Gary, teach me something.
I don't care which tournament you won back in the 1980s or whatever so you might not get exactly what you're expecting every single time for such a high price tag.
So, I think this kind of model, for whatever reason he decided to go with the English lessons is, you know, up to him.
But when you can do it from a customer's point of view at a much more affordable price, from a customer's point of view, it's perhaps a better investment.
Yeah. So I guess the key point here is that people tend to trust those public figures that they admire either celebrity or other kinds of highly achieving with a highly achieving career believing they offer valuable insights or content in these so -called a course courses and unlike traditional instructors, celebrities can often end up bringing a kind of storytelling styling ads to this kind of education and making these educational experiences more entertaining and more engaging as well.
Whether the actual content is in line with your actual expectation, judging from what Steve has mentioned about?
That's that's questionable.
But it's interesting because what are people looking for from these classes?
what you guys just gave as examples show two directions with the Master class example maybe what those super famous or you know the master in the field when giving a class maybe they're going down the aspirational route telling the story getting you motivated and making you aspire to the dream that Steve will himself become a chess master and whereas would Daniel Wu and the rest are doing here in China I think they're they're delivering exactly on what you expected that is to teach you exactly I didn't learn anything about chess but I'm guessing with Daniels classes there there's there's much
to be much to be learned but yeah what's your I mean you know in a vacuum what's your personal response to this when you see celebrities going down this avenue, do you find it weird?
Do you find it to be?
Yeah, cool. They're just celebrities.
They're just people.
They're just trying to take advantage of an opportunity that is presented.
How do you feel about it?
Well, I think it really depends on the celebrity and also what the celebrity is selling.
In this particular case, I think it's actually kind of a good match of the celebrity's image, his skill what's he's known for with what he's selling English speaking classes and also there's something a little bit it's hard to put a to pinpoint exactly what it is but like the celebrity name is a brand these days you're right and ideally it should match with the product that person if it goes beyond this person's ranking, then it's almost like, oh cool, this product is actually giving this celebrity's image a lift. But what's really undesirable is when the product is actually something that would be
negatively impacting the celebrity's image.
And if Daniel were doing this 20 years ago, I don't know if I would feel so good about it.
But now he's got a more mature image and you know he has a family to raise and he has some nice cars in his garage in California.
He's apparently really into that too and also self -engineering some of the stuff.
Then you're like all right, okay, I get it.
And so so I think it kind of depends on the situation.
But overall, I mean, this is part of maybe what they call it education, entertainment.
So you know, you're, you're busy with life.
You are tired from work and you want to learn a few really solid, authentic English phrases from a good looking guy who you might have a crush on when you are a kid and getting some entertainment from that at the same time.
It sounds like it's scratching the right sort of spot.
Yeah, there's some emotional value there too, and I should say I'm not saying masterclass is a complete waste of time for every lesson.
There's tons and tons and tons and different topics on there.
I'm just saying my own personal experience with mr. World -class chess player So many buyers they are fans primarily but learners the second they are still Looking looking forward to seeing their idols in a new form of setting in a new environment But ultimately it's about idol worshipping I guess but you think so Well, okay, some people do agree but there are also other people saying that for this particular celebrity to Make it this big and so many people are talking about it.
It must have hit beyond just the fan base Yeah Maybe some people don't even realize it's him.
There was one internet comment that said I thought this was just an English teacher That looked like Daniel woo I didn't know it was actually him Yeah, it's a fun.
It's a fun thing. Isn't it?
Yeah. What do you guys see as what we truly want to get from these online courses, which is a huge industry in China and huge across the world as well.
It's something worth more than close to $900, is it million or billion US dollars actually?
Yeah. I saw the number.
So I think at its core, learners hope to gain real actionable practical skills from these online courses, whether it's about mastering a new language, learning a new skill, or getting some kind of personal development.
So with that in mind, I feel like somehow the celebrities factor their involvement can of course draw attention, wider attention, but over the long term, it's the quality of these contents that will keep people continuously engaged?
Yeah, there's a lot of attractive things, right?
It's the convenience of it, it's the flexibility of it, too.
It's on your schedule and it tends not to take up too much of your time.
I think they call that microlearning, right?
Like in little short bursts.
There's a lot of advantages here, which is why it's such a huge industry.
Yes indeed. Coming up next, let's have a moment of heart to heart.
In 2017 and I just want to thank you for putting together such an amazing show all these years I sent you my first voice memo back in 2022 for our 10th anniversary.
Thank you again for the lovely gifts, by the way But somehow it's taken me this long to send another one Well, I told myself if not now, then when, right?
So here I am Okay, a little update from my side, I've made a career shift over the past two years.
I was teaching English and now I'm working as an international sales support.
Recently I've gotten a chance to step into a sales role more, rather than just being a sales assistant.
It's a big change but I'm super excited for the opportunity and ready to take the challenge.
Stepping out of my comfort zone, it's not all that easy, it's always easier said than done.
But I've received a lot of support and encouragement from my manager, also from my friends.
So at this moment, I can say that I'm ready to face whatever obstacles come my way.
I absolutely love each episode from Roundtable.
Please allow me to give my special shout out to He Yang and our new host, Steve.
Your opinions really resonate with me.
Oh, I've got to mention that the apps or photos you've been using, they are always so relevant and vivid.
Thank you so much, love from Shanghai, until next time.
Take care. Bye. Thank you so much Yao.
And it's amazing to hear from you, first off, thank you for being such a dedicated listener since 2017.
And I do absolutely remember you from 2022 when we held the RT Securnia round table 10th anniversary party, and you sent in a voice memo and I was amazed by the things you had to, such wonderful things you had to say about us, so thank you so much. Yeah, thanks for your kind words Yao.
Well, I wasn't here in 2022 for your last message, but maybe I'll be here in 2028, when you contact us again.
Congratulations on your, I'm teasing you Yau, congratulations on your career change.
By the way, that's exciting.
Sounds like you got a promotion.
Your career is headed in the right direction for you.
That's awesome. That's awesome, Yau.
Keep in touch and send us another message.
Pretty soon, please.
Well, best wishes to a new career but regardless of what you do, ultimately it's all about how you feel and whether there is a sense of gain and fulfillment for you.
So, whatever you're doing, best wishes.
Yeah, absolutely! Keep in touch, Yao, and please remember that we are here always cheering you on.
And this week we've also we are dipping into our mailbag and here is David from Chengdu sending us an email.
Hello Roundtable team.
I'm really glad that Roundtable has focused on Chengdu on a Mondays program well.
This is a couple of weeks back by the way.
So Chengdu is the city where David is living in and he's really delighted that the Nezha movie which we discussed on the show has created this great success with local elements and David has looked up why Chengdu dialect is so funny especially in the context of Taiji Jun -Yin in the Noja sequel movie and he says that it's really expressive in Chengdu dialect and he loves the metaphors and exaggeration of the dialect.
Here I'm doing some rough translating in English it would be like running like the wind like there's a motor in their legs so with the Mata in the legs and also you know when you know it has a fantasy story so everything looks like a period piece and it's kind of funny to have the motor metaphor there and also David says that He would like to highlight that the sports… The World Games, is it?
Yes. The World Games, thank you very much, will be held in Chengdu from August 16 to 25.
And he would like to welcome us to Chengdu one of the days.
Yeah, that would be great.
Thanks for the email, David.
talking about accents.
I think I was asking about accents one day on the show.
You were. I really rather you don't because I couldn't answer your question.
You didn't know the answer to my question, but I'm very familiar with how endearing and almost personal accents can be in Nova Scotia where I'm from, the East Coast of Canada.
We have our own dialect, our own accent, which can be quite strong.
You don't hear it actually when I speak to you on Roundtable.
But when I go back to Nova Scotia, well, out comes the accent.
Oh, big time. Or when I'm playing ice hockey — either of those times.
So I get it, David.
Yeah, I know how endearing and how wonderful accents can be.
Thanks for the email.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to that sporting event coming up, by the way.
Hopefully, we can get there.
So one thing really nice, I think really nice about Sichuan or Chengdu dialect is that most Chinese people can understand this particular genre of dialect as long as you can understand Mandarin Chinese, by comparison, the dialects in some other regions across southern China, for example, in my hometown of Zhejiang Province, they are really difficult for outsiders to comprehend, honestly speaking.
Outtiders? That's not the case for the Sichuan dialect.
I find it challenging enough.
I have to... You're probably just much better with comprehending these different dialects.
The Chinese language is a rich treasure trove.
And I found it surprising.
It was one of the first things I learned is that yeah, even within this huge country there's different ways of speaking with different accents and sometimes people have difficulty understanding them.
That's cool. And that brings us to the end of today's show.
So thank you, Steve and Jinghong, for joining the discussion.
I'm He Yang, we will see you next time.
