In the news, on the Internet, on YouTube and social networks, his spark and originality to address issues on the crossing of Western and local cultures in Taiwan have turned him into one of the favorite foreigners in the island. His name is Jesus Sandoval and he gave us an exclusive look into his successful project “The foreigner who does not teach English” (阿兜仔不教美語!), the concept running through its second season on YouTube, and the reason why he has one of the most successful online channels due to the registered high ratings.
In Taiwan there is a general belief among society: If you’re foreign, you’re American and an English teacher. This is because most Western faces come to Formosa Island with that particular mission.
Jesus was not one of them, though. He moved from Spain to Taiwan eight years ago in order to study Chinese. After a while, he decided to pursue a master’s degree and yes, to teach Spanish, his mother language.
At first, as a way to facilitate the language learning to his students, he began to produce some basic videos in Spanish for his students to analyze in class with him. After a while, he says, “I got bored and decided to turn these videos into a much broader project.”
Two years ago, the project officially started under the title “The foreigner who does not teach English,” in which Jesus, with the help of a friend, tells stories about his life in Taiwan… all in Mandarin.
In Taiwan, Mandarin is the official language, but the Taiwanese dialect is also spoken by most of the islanders. The full concept of Jesus’ project is pronounced precisely, in its first part, in Taiwanese, boosting the interest among locals towards his posts (In Taiwanese, foreign writes 阿兜仔 and sounds like A-do-a; while in Mandarin it writes外國人, or Wai-guo –ren).
Working now on its third year of making videos, while running the second season of his saga, Jesus continues to produce weekly ideas to please a growing number of followers that every Friday are aware of his publications on YouTube.
So far, he says, his large audience are more attracted to topics such as food, interpersonal and romantic relationships, and the most important cultural curiosities about foreigners, because, as he says: “Taiwanese are very curious about us.”
In the more of 250 videos featured in his YouTube channel, Jesus talks about interesting cultural shocks and mutual clichés, such as his now neutralized annoyance at the fact that people who just met him assume that he speaks English only; or that he is in Taiwan to teach that language. “But now that is a topic that does not bother me anymore. At the end I understand they are curious about our origins and the reason why we are here,” he says.
The project pushed him to improve his Mandarin skills, an important detail that can not be overlooked by judging his whole visual work. “At first the videos did not have a lot of background, they were only thought out to help my students to improve their Spanish. But then I got bored and decided to try something new. I tried to do videos in full Chinese because my main audience is Taiwanese,” he says with conviction.
Fun and relaxed (just like in his videos), Jesus does not pretend to be something he is not in his sketches. He seems to be the same in and out of the spotlight, the main reason why his fans have grown to the point of religiously demanding a new video every week.
“So far I have not failed with the posts”, he says. “Every Friday I upload a new video and sometimes — mostly Tuesdays or Wednesdays — I upload some special stuff. Whenever I fail to do so, which seldom happens — he laughs –, my followers begin to demand new material immediately.”
Perhaps the only time he stopped publishing his ingenious ideas was when he was traveling back home in Spain visiting family for a holiday.
Leaving the island for a bit allowed him to measure the impact and scope of his work; Jesus realized that back at home not many people recognize what he does. Thus, he says, most of his audience is settled in Taiwan (over 90% of the audience for his videos) due to the fact that the situations that develop within the island, and receive little attention from abroad, mostly from countries like the U.S. , Japan (through a friend who recognized him on Internet) and China, where his work has already been mentioned on several news shows.
Hence, there is no doubt that job offers have multiplied for him.
Although the presence of our “A-do-a” is less than a month-old in the local news, he has been working on multiple projects, both with partners and individually. “In Taiwan, job opportunities multiply faster when you have media attention. Now I am about to start with two advertisement projects that came just after my videos were mentioned in the news.”
Before it boomed in the media, “the YouTube channel was already developed” which got him some extra fame; “At the time when I was starting to get recognition, I received calls from several companies and some collaboration opportunities.”
But the 34 year-old foreigner is not naive and knows that not everything that glitters is gold. “I’ve turned down opportunities with some agencies that also make Internet videos and other projects that did not convince me. The only offer that I accepted was the one coming from YouTube and Yahoo!. Others came along and say ‘You’re going to be famous, we will help you’, but they were not clear about the specifications regarding image management and other important details.”
Smiling to every question, Jesus shared a little about his personal life. The question was simple: Will you marry anytime soon?
The Spanish teacher did not hesitate to smile and answer with honesty: “Not at the moment.”
“Three years ago”, he continued, “I was about to get married and I had a very, very, very (emphasizing each ‘very’) bad time. It turns out that the girl in question was a little bit crazy and a bit of a psycho. After that bad experience the story ended teaching me how to take relationships very slow from then on.”
So far, Jesus has gone through three loving relationships with three different women:
“The first one was crazy but I love her a lot; the second one is the best person I’ve ever met; and the third one was crazy and a pain in the ass, but thankfully she is already out of my life, so I’m very happy,” he said laughing and closing the topic.
Among his plans, the interviewee assured that Taiwan continues to be on the centre of the map of his life, as he is a year before to finally get a Permanent Resident Visa (PRC). “The document that would allow me to come and go from Taiwan to many other places in order to learn more languages and meet different cultures.” Actually, he is currently studying Thai and Vietnamese in order to visit those places soon.
As for his work, “The foreign that does not teach English” Is set to extend its seasons for many years, a project that aims to add a parallel series of short films in which Jesus wants to spread the voice of Taiwan worldwide.
Finally, the A-do-a concluded the meeting with a message for both locals and outsiders:
“Overall, I would tell the local people to strive for actually meet outsiders. It is very interesting to get to know the true point of view of foreigners in Taiwan. We all have ideas about how we foreigners are but usually no one listens because there are very few outsiders that seem to take Taiwan seriously, or even worry about learning the language.”
On the other hand, he advised foreigners “to know more about culture in Taiwan and not only superficial issues; there are many stories that Taiwanese people discuss with passion like TV shows from 20 years ago or very interesting writers, but they do not talk to us about such things because we do not show any interest”.
Leaving in a very good mood, Jesus thanked the support of followers and new fans and invited them to be aware of his upcoming videos.
“Every Friday there is a new topic. Now we are showing one about “selfies” and another about the food in Taiwan, but there are more topics on the way, so stay tuned!,” he concluded.
About Spain out of the World Cup
- I do not feel bad at all. The video we released about Spain losing to Holland was recorded before the game, for the record. It was a premonition. Yet I am not a big fan of football.
What he misses about Spain
The sun. It is almost impossible to see it while living in Taipei. Another would be the passion showed by Spanish people, we react more… I complain a lot of my compatriots in Spain but at least people over there dare to make mistakes and its more fun.
About the cliché of foreigners in Taiwan
Often the relationships between Taiwanese and foreigners are limited. The Taiwanese people know I speak Chinese but they still speak to me in English, it is very strange.
Check out his work
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/taiwanspeaksspanish
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/noldoazul
Twitter: https://twitter.com/noldoazul
Emmanuel is a freelancer journalist who writes about his experiences in Taiwan in both English and Spanish. He also collaborates with Blink Ent., by writing short film’s scripts and TV Sketches and develops other personal writing projects. You can find more about his work in the following links.
https://www.facebook.com/EmmanuelBlinkEnt
Email me when Emmanuel Félix L publishes or recommends stories