Manneken Pis, beer and chips, but also the Pumpkin Regatta in Kasterlee, girls' band K3 and a Flemish rapper: this is how Flemish influencer Lucas Deckers explains Belgium in a Chinese talk show watched by around 100 million people worldwide. The Flemish influencer isn’t that well known in Belgium, but in China he has hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
How do you explain Belgium to 100 million Chinese people? It was a question for Lucas Deckers when he was invited onto the Chinese talk show “Informal Talks”.
In the programme, influencers from all over the world who speak Chinese are asked to talk about their country. This was a piece of cake for Lucas, who speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese thanks to his Sinology studies at Leuven uni.
Chicken legs and pumpkins
The Flemish influencer did not limit himself to the obvious when describing Belgium. ‘Most Chinese people are now familiar with beer, chips and Manneken Pis,’ he told VRT.
That's why he went in search of things they definitely wouldn't know about. ‘I talked about K3, rapper Bockie De Repper, meat spread préparé and Sinterklaas, the Flemish version of Father Christmas. He also regaled his audience on tales of a chicken leg throwing competition and a Pumpkin Regatta in which contestants row in hollowed out giant pumpkins.’
Lucas’s explanation elicited mixed reactions. ‘When it comes to food, Chinese people are always interested,’ laughs the influencer. ‘When it came to the tale of partygoers urinating against a police vehicle at a minister’s party, people were mainly shocked.’
From Buggenhout to a talk show in China
How did a twenty-something from Buggenhout (East Flanders) end up on a talk show in China? Here's how: via his studies, Lucas became very interested in Chinese culture. He is also married to a Chinese woman.
Over time, he started making vlogs about life in Belgium in fluent Mandarin. On Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, he has acquired 259,000 followers. To increase his audience further, Lucas hopes to be invited back for the next season of the talk show.