A 41-year-old self-employed Douyin personality and a Hongkonger settled in south China's Guangzhou City, Terence Wong has led a life filled with struggles, spins, and adventures. 

Eleven years ago, Wong decided to move his life from Hong Kong to the capital city of Guangdong Province, but he was not unfamiliar to his new home. With his father working as a manager in a factory located in the south of Guangdong, Wong had a chance to visit the port city as a young boy. 

"What drove the adolescent me to come to see this place was mainly curiosity," Wong said.  

First Contact

Recalling that little journey he undertook with his father in the 1990s, Wong said he was bewildered by the curious sights. 

"I was on this old-fashioned green-skinned train. It was slow, messy and cramped, very much unlike the modern electric trains we already had in Hong Kong." For him, it was an underdeveloped world he had never encountered before. 

During the trip Wong also visited his father's temporary accommodation. "Compared to where we lived in Hong Kong, that apartment had much more space, but there was almost no decoration to speak of and it was simply too humble."

While unimpressed with what he had witnessed, this vivid memory intrigued him to observe the changes that were about to take place in Guangdong. In his college days, he worked as a part-time tour guide occasionally traveling to the province. 

"If you look at the changes that have unfolded over the last 30 years, they were just immense. I was amazed to see how small towns that were pieced together by farmlands and industrial zones evolved into metropolises."

Moving to Guangzhou

Jobs in Hong Kong were not abundant, Wong said. Graduating from college with a degree in tourism, what he could only find were generic jobs, the ones he said couldn't bring out his talents. 

"I'm also the kind of person who doesn't like to sit behind a desk working corporate hours," he added. Wanting to have his own business, he decided to launch a modeling agency with a couple of friends.

Office rentals were expensive and it wasn't cheap to hire people in Hong Kong. "It was already remarkable that we could own a small business," he said. But that business adventure didn't pan out. He came to explore the idea of moving to Guangzhou.

For Wong, Guangzhou in the early 2000s was flooded with opportunities as it was a burgeoning city that stood at an early developing stage, whereas the Asian financial hub had already reached a point where the market was saturated.

"There was a lot of enthusiasm for launching business in Guangzhou," he said. Blessed with great social skills, Wong soon made friends and grew popular among locals. "From time to time they would consult me on their business ideas."

Getting to know the people who live across from his hometown, Wong learned about dissimilarities between them. "I think the strength that the people from the Chinese mainland had was they were not afraid to embark on new adventures, and being a Hongkonger, as I am, what people saw in me was my broad horizon and distinct perspective."

Adapting that new life was not without its challenges. The first few years Wong ran into a lot of inconveniences as he held Hong Kong identification papers and some systems could not process them. "It affected my employment, my lease and my use of public transportation, but things improved considerably over time. Mainland authorities have rolled out many new policies that help us settle here."

On top of that, Wong's Mandarin wasn't great, which also caused him headaches. While many Guangzhou residents speak Cantonese, Hongkongers' first language, Wong still had to use a lot more of Mandarin. He began to only use pinyin, the official romanization system for Mandarin, as the input method when he was typing on the keyboard. "That turned out to be very helpful in improving my Mandarin."

Hong Kong emissary on Douyin

Being a social media influencer, Wong has taken on a role dedicated to bridging the cultural gap between Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland. 

His primary followers on Douyin are mainlanders, with a decent proportion from Guangdong – Cantonese speakers. What makes him stand out on China's most popular social media platform is that he can appeal to people who share the same language with Hongkongers but differ drastically in terms of cultural belongings, while people living outside of Guangdong are also interested in learning about the distant island city. Like Hongkongers, many mainlanders have grown up watching Hong Kong movies.

"I've been able to address misconceptions, explain differences, and share my experience in both Guangzhou and my birthplace," he said.

With many videos also featuring funny stories and inspiring anecdotes, Wong believes his works have projected an aura of positive energy. He said he is planning to make a series of documentaries about the life of other Hongkongers living in Guangdong, so that he can help further shorten the distance between Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland. 

"There was already a lot of Hongkongers who came to seek opportunities 10 years ago," he said. "In recent years, even more are flooding in. I constantly receive messages asking about the life here."

Wong also enjoys interacting with viewers in the comment section, while not all comments are positive. 

"I've encountered many different comments about my videos. Some were left by people who I think haven't discovered what it is like outside their own worlds," he said.

One example is that viewers would sometimes ask him why he mixes English when speaking in his mother tongue, with some even calling him pompous. "I would explain to them that our upbringing, education and work environment have shaped us this way."

He said that the reason why they would feel baffled about his language-mixing propensity is probably because in their life circles they very rarely meet people who speak like this. "I believe my videos can serve as a channel that helps them appreciate these cultural differences."

The same also applies to Hongkongers, Wong added. He recalled a long-separated friend he once ran into in Hong Kong. His friend, after learning that Wong had settled in Guangzhou, was astounded and couldn't understand why he would choose to move on to the Chinese mainland. 

"This was exactly the kind of stereotype that was prevalent among Hongkongers, and today it still hasn't changed much," Wong said. "Very few of them have ever set foot on the Chinese mainland. It's only natural that they wouldn't know what it is like here."

Video editor: Li Ningning

Graphic designer: Liu Shaozhen