Written by: Wang Yapeng
Posted on: October 18, 2018 | 
| 中文
Artem Zhdanov
Before the 2018 Spring Festival, a Chinese Spring Festival gift pack became the hot sale for foreign buyers on Taobao. The pack included a Chinese spring festival couplet, paper-cuttings, red envelopes, a mug printed with "drink more hot water," a chopsticks case printed with “have you eaten yet?,” a “laowai” (foreigner) passport holder and so on. No one ever imagined that the seller of these things would be a foreign guy, Artem Zhdanov from Russia.
The 28-year-old young man has been in China for six years. In addition to being a Taobao shop owner, he is also the blogger from a media account that contains introductory information about China, as well as a founding partner of a business consultancy company.
Artem is from Biysk of Russia, and his Chinese name is (An Tianyou). After graduating from high school, Artem majored in oriental studies at the Altay State University in Russia. “The subjects in this major are Chinese politics, economy, culture, history and so on, so I had to learn Chinese language.” When it came to the reason for choosing the major, he said, “I really wanted to study international relations. At that time, there were not too many people studying Chinese in Russia, and I wanted to learn something different."
He believes that if one wants to learn Chinese, he must go to China, otherwise he will fail to learn it well. In June 2010, he first came to China and studied Chinese language for three months at Jilin Russian Institute. "I was not good at Chinese, and I didn't have a cell phone at that time, so it was very difficult to communicate with others." After going back to Russia, he began to study Chinese language meticulously. He learned the language by watching Chinese movies, reading Chinese news, chatting with Chinese students studying in Russia and even through communication tools such as QQ. “At that time, I added every Chinese I met to my QQ friend group, and chatted with them online.”
During the summer holidays in the following year, he came to China again. In order to save traveling expenses, he traveled all the way to Shanghai and took every opportunity on the way to learn Chinese.
His two visits to China strengthened Artem’s determination to seek opportunities in China. In July 2012, he came to Guangzhou two years after graduating from university, and began his life in China. “In China, you can communicate with the Chinese people and experience Chinese society and culture."
Today, Artem can speak fluent Chinese and has no problem in communicating with the Chinese people, but in his opinion, “Chinese is really hard to learn, and the tones, blade-alveolars and cacuminals are all very difficult. I still cannot understand some Chinese words, and there is still a lot to learn."
When talking about the reasons for learning Chinese, he said, “Although China's development is growing faster and better, some Russians still do not understand China.” Taking himself as an example, Jackie Chan and the Great Wall were his only impressions of China before learning Chinese.
As his understanding of China deepened, he began to introduce China to Russia. “When I was a student, I started writing articles about China on social networking sites such as Vkontakte (VK). In February 2012, I opened a related homepage on VK to introduce China. It turned out to be very popular. At the beginning, there were more than 20,000 followers of this account, and now there are more than 90,000."
In November 2013, Artem registered the EKD.ME website to introduce Chinese information. "This site has 100,000 visits per month,” he proudly said. The articles on this website are related to China's science, technology, society, education and other fields. The website also cooperates with some Chinese official websites. “We wrote about China's shared bicycles, WeChat and so on to depict a modern China. I hope to spread Chinese culture for young people.”
Opening an online shop on Taobao is another way for the young man to spread Chinese culture. In his shop, all products are printed with Chinese characters, such as “Hello, thank you, I don't understand,” etc. In order to introduce Chinese culture more accurately, Artem places descriptions on some products. “For example, in the description of the mug printed with ‘Drink more hot water,’ we explain why Chinese people say this; in the description of the chopstick case printed with ‘Have you eaten yet?’ we introduce, that sometimes it could be just a way of greeting." He said, "I hope to introduce Chinese culture in a way which young people will like."
This year is his sixth year in China. Speaking of his life in China, he said, "China is an open and inclusive country. Its science and technology are developing very fast and the life here is very convenient." After living and working in China for a long time, some of his Russian habits are also changing slowly. "I have got used to going out on a shared bicycle, shopping without cash, and having a midnight snack," he said with a smile.
During the Spring Festival this year, Artem went to Bali Island for a holiday. When he returned to China after the holiday, he felt like he was "going home." "I love China, but I also love my motherland, Russia and its culture, that is my home forever. And China is my second home," he said.
Translated by Xu Donglin
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