See here for a full list of transcripts

[Trailer]

Nick YU: Yeah, that is just a boy. He’s so happy. When he walks, he’s so happy. You know, I think that is me. I'm a guy, from the bottom of my heart, who wants to be happy.

[Intro]

OF: Welcome to Mosaic of China, a podcast about people who are making their mark in China. I'm your host Oscar Fuchs.

Today's compilation is going to work either amazingly or terribly. This week we're looking at how the guests from Season 01 of the show answered the question “What is your favourite WeChat sticker?” At this point, I would have explained to those outside of China about what WeChat is. But thanks to Donald Trump's recent executive order threatening to ban it in the U.S, I think everyone out there knows what we're talking about. Stickers are little animations, the likes of which you see on all international social media platforms these days. But they are particularly well suited and well integrated to WeChat. There's simply no debate about it: using WeChat stickers is the best.

Here's why today's show might go wrong. Firstly, you might not care one bit about WeChat stickers. Fair enough. Secondly, you might care about them, but that doesn't mean that you want to hear 30 people describe them to you in an audio format. Also fair enough. Thirdly, you might be in one of the WeChat listeners groups, you might love WeChat stickers, but that doesn't mean that you want to be bombarded by 30 of them, which is exactly what is going to happen alongside the release of this compilation. More than fair. Or you might be looking at the versions of these stickers that I've posted on Instagram at oscology* and on Facebook at mosaicofchina, and correctly concluded that they are irrelevant to you if you don't have WeChat. So with all that in mind, here is today's special compilation episode. I don't know if it's going to work but please send me your feedback either way.

*A different Instagram ID was mentioned in the original recording. That ID is now obsolete, and the updated one has been substituted.

[Main]

[Voiceover]

OF: Lexie Comstock, the cookie supplier from Episode 20.

[Clip]

LC: Some people are very good at WeChat sticker language. You are one of them - yeah, you're pointing to yourself, I was going to give that to you anyway, but sure.

OF: Give me credit for my WeChat game. Come on.

LC: Mine is very bad, and very simple. Because it just takes so much time to be like… I don't know. So I like the ones that have been pre-loaded on my WeChat. And those are the little, like, bunnies? What are they? The little bunnies? And I find that the like, what would you even call that hand motion? Like a hula, almost.

OF: Yeah.

LC: It just applies in many situations. So I like the.. it’s just, kind of, my fallback. I get genuine joy from using it. And it's super cute.

OF: Listen, I'll explain how you have many different stickers and make it work. You list them in order of what emotion you want to convey.

LC: Really?

OF: Yeah, so…

LC: How do you change their order?

OF: Oh, I'll teach you.

LC: I don't want to be taught. It's too much.

[Voiceover]

OF: Angie Wu, the jewellery craftsman from Episode 18.

[Clip]

AW: OK, so I actually change every month, or every two months, depending what I add, new ones. But recently it has been this reindeer that’s rolling, like, on his back, on waves. And he’s just rolling on this, looking super happy and comfortable.

OF: That's cool because you actually do a lot of water sports, right?

AW: Yeah, I actually do. I do windsurfing and kitesurfing. And this little reindeer just reminds me of my happy time by the beach.

[Voiceover]

OF: Gigi Chang, the translator from Episode 24.

[Clip]

GC: Well, I like the WeChat pups, the green one and the white one.

OF: Oh I love those, I always use those.

GC: Yeah, they're my favourite. Yeah.

OF: Do you have a particular sticker that you like the most?

GC: I think I like most of them. I think there’s one where one of them just walks off and takes a dump.

OF: Oh, really?

GC: Yeah. I think there was one that was just sort of like ‘poo’.

OF: OK, well if you can find that, then send it. I’ll put that online too.

GC: Yeah. I don't think I made it up, I think it’s real.

[Voiceover]

OF: Sanford Browne, the biochemist from Episode 29.

[Clip]

SB: So for WeChat stickers, for me - probably like many people - you’re always “Look, what's the most current one? I got to have that one, that's really good”. But I find, particularly in the more cartoonish ones, they're great but they're only great for a few weeks. And then there's one that I really like. It's a dog, a pug, just walking and then it looks straight in the camera, and it's more of that surprise, like you're really - “Huh? What's happening?” - which is more of your daily life in Shanghai, so that's why it relates.

[Voiceover]

OF: Lori Li, the private club GM from Episode 10.

[Clip]

LL: Yeah, there is a panda. He destroyed everything in the office.

[Voiceover]

OF: Astrid Poghosyan, the violinist from Episode 04.

[Clip]

AP: I have an addiction with the stickers. I have, like, 200-something, so I have to choose. OK this is my favourite.

OF: Ahh.

AP: One of the frequent ones. I'm using. It's very hard for me to describe what it is, like. But um, once you say something that somebody didn't expect, or you got them, you just send this in sort of like… “I told you!”

OF: “I told you”, pointing at you… And this part's coming out, it’s

AP: It’s a lot of… Once you live here, I think it's a lot of things that's like “I told you so”, right? And it just becomes like that.

OF: Right. So actually yeah, it's a cute way of saying “I told you so, I’m cleverer and better than you.”

AP: Yes. Exactly. Thanks.

[Voiceover]

OF: Simon Manetti, the business leader from Episode 17.

[Clip]

SM: How does one describe a WeChat sticker? So it's not creepy, but anything with kids in it. They're just so real. Right? So kids doing a dance, kids doing fist pumps. I'm all for it. I go authenticity, unbridled passion.

[Voiceover]

OF: Nick Yu, the playwright from Episode 13.

[Clip]

NY: Yeah, that is just a boy. He’s so happy. When he walks, he’s so happy. You know, I think that is me. I also want to be like that. When I was young in the village, I would be just like that. All the world is mine. I'm a guy, from the bottom of my heart, who wants to be happy.

[Voiceover]

OF: Roz Coleman, the theatre producer from Episode 22.

[Clip]

RC: Let me just show you… here you are. ‘Orange Dancing Boy’, or ‘Orange Boy’. I mean, he's another door opening in a way because then after that, you have to collect every single one that this kid has been a part of. So there’s ‘Orange Boy’, there’s also ‘Green Boy’, there's also ‘Purple Boy’, they're all the same boy. He has different outfits on. He's always dancing, dancing with a joy that is unparalleled by anybody else's dancing. It's completely unselfconscious. I like to think that he doesn't know that he's a WeChat sticker, and that there's not going to be that problematic thing of putting your kids on the internet, and then they grow up to resent you.

[Voiceover]

OF: Maple Zuo, the comedian from Episode 02.

[Clip]

MZ: 櫻桃小丸子 [Yīngtáo Xiǎo Wánzi], like a Japanese cartoon. She's so happy and innocent, and she has a happy family as well. And I think I just I want to be her. But I can't be her. But I like her. She’s just so happy and doesn’t think about anything. I had such a dark side in my childhood, but hers doesn’t. So I hope that my daughter maybe can grow up like that.

[Voiceover]

OF: Greg Nance, the ultramarathon athlete from Episode 23.

[Clip]

GN: Yes, my two favourite WeChat stickers. One is Derek Zoolander, and he's dancing with his friends in his open air Jeep. And that's from one of my favourite movies, Zoolander. And the second is the rapper Drake. He's got a song called Hotline Bling, where he does this kind of fun dance. And there's a sticker where he's actually playing Fruit Ninja, which is fantastic.

OF: Thank you, that's going on social media afterwards.

GN: Boom.

[Voiceover]

OF: Sabrina Chen, the dance programme curator from Episode 26.

[Clip]

SC: くまモン [Kumamon] rolling on the floor.

OF: OK, let's see this. You've just sent it to me, right?

SC: Yes.

OF: OK, so I know this guy from LINE, right?

SC: Yeah.

OF: It’s growing on me. I've seen it through a couple of loops now, and I'm laughing. OK. I'm a fan. I'm gonna use that one.

[Voiceover]

OF: Emily Madge, the aquarium conservationist from Episode 14.

[Clip]

EM: Um, so it's a woman with attitude, strutting down the street. And she grabs a businessman and starts dry-humping him, and his face.

OF: Oh my word!

EM: It sounds really random. I don't know how to describe it. How would you describe it?

OF: That's how it looks. I'm actually… I'm a little bit embarrassed, am I going red?

EM: That’s why it's my favourite. You have to post it.

OF: OK, I'm posting it. I definitely… I'm doing it under duress. This is objectifying. I am completely scandalised by this one.

EM: OK, I’m sorry to put you in that position.

OF: No, it's very funny.

[Voiceover]

OF: Jorge Luzio, the marketer for Sprite from Episode 05.

[Clip]

JL: It's about a famous star of soap operas in Mexico. Actually, I was so surprised to receive that here in China, you know, on the other side of the world. And it’s this beautiful girl, but it’s so eighties, and so old-fashioned, and yet so insightful and so current right now. And so that's my favourite one.

OF: And you know what? It has a great caption. But I’m not going to ruin it, I’m going to let people look at it on social media.

JL: Yeah, I love it.

[Voiceover]

OF: Abe Deyo, the tour manager from Episode 27.

[Clip]

AD: This one, because it annoys my fiancée, because I do a similar face.

OF: OK, so can you explain what this one is?

AD: This one is Christian Bale doing an arrogant… Or no…

OF: Oh, I would say arrogant.

AD: Yeah. An arrogant little kissy face, like smooch. Air smooch.

OF: Yes. And there’s a high level of smugness.

AD: Yeah.

OF: Yeah, that would annoy a fiancée, that would.

AD: Oh yeah.

OF: And you do this face? I can't imagine you doing this face.

AD: I do that face.

OF: Oh, dude.

AD: It definitely gets me into trouble. Every time I put that sticker up, It's like “Oooh.” Eye-rolling.

[Voiceover]

OF: Eric Olander, the journalist from Episode 03.

[Clip]

EO: I have a lot. I do. This was actually one of the harder questions. But I do like the slow clap. So I've got a couple of slow clap stickers, just to make fun of my friends who are either expressing pride or expressing something, and you kind of give them a slow clap. So yeah, so I'll say the slow clap.

[Voiceover]

OF: Lissanthea Taylor, the pain expert from Episode 28.

[Clip]

LT:  My favourite WeChat sticker is Tina Fey - Liz Lemon - high-fiving herself.

OF: Excellent. I know the one. I must use that one quite a lot as well.

LT: It fits our similarly slightly snarky and sarcastic personalities.

OF: Yeah, that's right. Because we think we're always right. And there's no one else who actually believes us. So we might as well just high-five ourselves.

LT: What do you know, we’re not right?

OF: I mean, yeah, sorry.

LT: Course we are.

[Voiceover]

OF: Octo Cheung, the fashion designer from Episode 30.

[Clip]

OC: Oh.

OF: OK, can you describe this?

OC: It’s an illustrated human, and the hands are moving like a fan, and firing many hearts from them.

OF: That’s very cute.

[Voiceover]

OF: Sebastien Denes, the inclusion advocate from Episode 11.

[Clip]

SD: An old lady who is just laughing out loud. I think sometimes we are too serious. And it's just about laughing.

[Voiceover]

OF: Stephane de Montgros, the events company CEO from Episode 19.

[Clip]

SDM: Let me send it to you. So a friend of mine actually recorded a short video of a buddy of mine and myself outside of a restaurant in Taipei. And I'm just doing some silly dancing in front of the restaurant. So I just think it's funny because there's myself in there and I have no idea how you get that kind of stuff done.

OF: And in what situation would you send this sticker?

SDM: When I'm happy, which happens every half an hour.

OF: Ah beautiful. And sickening at the same time.

[Voiceover]

OF: Noah Sheldon, the documentary filmmaker from Episode 09.

[Clip]

NS: Mmm. There's one that I've been very fond of lately, which is a girl on a bicycle chasing a motorcycle.

OF: And in what context do you use that, like when you're running late? Or…

NS: More like doing something impossible. Like ‘We can do it’. I'm also very fond of the boy with the extremely large comb, slowly combing his hair.

[Voiceover]

OF: Nini Sum, the artist from Episode 16.

[Clip]

OF: OK, can you describe this?

NS: I don't know, this is… In Chinese it’s called 草泥马 [cǎonímǎ]. It’s like this kind of…  I don't know what kind of animal this is, like a sheep or something.

OF: I think it's a llama. Is it a llama?

NS: Oh yeah yeah, I think it’s a llama, that’s the name of it. And I just like his face. It’s like just chewing and like “Eh?” He just turns into like “Whaaaat?” It's really silly. And people say it’s like me. So I use this a lot.

[Voiceover]

OF: Philippe Gas, the Disney resort CEO from Episode 01.

[Clip]

PG: I have a couple, but the one I use a lot is a little baby chicken that looks very grumpy and has a cigarette in his mouth. And that’s the way I look and I sound, I think, on Mondays. So typically I send that to anybody who's talking to me on Mondays, that's the face I make because it represents my mood. Really my mood.

[Voiceover]

OF: Gina Li, the invention company CEO from Episode 06.

[Clip]

GL: It's Super Mario shaking his head, as a super rock star. If I want to cheer people up, and then bring back some energy, I just do that. Like, every time I look at it, I just wanna do the same.

[Voiceover]

OF: Srinivas Yanamandra, the compliance leader from Episode 15.

[Clip]

SY: The WeChat sticker is a cute little girl. And she exudes a kind of weird expression, like “Oops", kind of a thing. And that is the most needed in the messaging platforms, especially when you do those silly mistakes, actually.

OF: This is actually one of my favourites too.

SY: Is it?

OF: Yeah. She has such a unique way of contorting her face.

SY: Yes, yes.

[Voiceover]

OF: Yael Farjun, the historical researcher from Episode 12.

[Clip]

YF: So I sent you the sticker…

OF: Oh, yes.

YF: …Of Gal Gadot, when she is excited about something. I find myself using that a lot in China, because again, there are so many new things happening all the time, you know. And so I'm excited a lot about daily life in China. And, well it's Gal Gadot, so of course, you know.

[Voiceover]

OF: Michael Zee, the Instagram influencer from Episode 07.

[Clip]

MZ: My favourite WeChat sticker is this little girl that’s saying ‘Bye.’ It is the perfect way to end the conversation.

OF: I'm looking at it now. Yes, you know who this is, right?

MZ: I know she's famous for something, but I don’t know what.

OF: This is Honey Boo Boo.

MZ: Oh that’s it, Honey Boo Boo, yeah.

[Voiceover]

OF: Vy Vu, the fitness community leader from Episode 08.

[Clip]

VV: Gosh, people are gonna hate me when I say this, but I actually don't use WeChat stickers.

OF: Get out.

VV: No, honestly, which it’s awful. I'll talk about my most used emoji.

OF: OK.

VV: It's actually the cleaver, the knife. And don't think that I'm a serial killer, but I actually use it in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way. So I use the phrase “or else”, and then I'll throw in three cleavers. So this will just be in a regular social context, like “I'll see you tomorrow… or else”.

OF: OK, it's not a sticker, but I do like it. So I'll let this pass. Just. But I am quite scared of you when you say that too.

[Voiceover]

OF: Tom Barker, the diplomat from Episode 25.

[Clip]

TB: So unfortunately, I don't use stickers. So, Barack Obama in 2008, when he was elected president, was the first president to be given a phone. And he wrote messages on his phone in proper prose. So he would write full sentences, and never abbreviate anything. So I was quite inspired by that. And I had a couple of friends who were also, sort of, along that pedantic line. And the look of disdain when I would send a smiley face was enough that I've just never been able to do it. I keep on wanting to, I see these people who do it. But then, in my line of work, the emoji could be misread in so many ways. And it would be quite hilarious… I mean, I really wish I could, because it would be so fun to just put up a ‘Bring it’ sticker or something, and see what would happen. But then, yeah, it would be awkward.

OF: Yeah, I guess if there's one profession where I can forgive you for not using stickers, it would be yours, but I am still disappointed.

TB: Ah, just can you imagine a 65-year-old ambassador trying to navigate which is the appropriate emoji? Do you use ‘Waving cornfield’? Or do you use ‘Hot dog’? ‘Aubergine aubergine aubergine!’

[Outro]

OF: Well done for making it through, you have reached the end of today's compilation. Hope to see you again next time, I think the topic will be equally as polarising since we'll be looking at the guests favourite places to hang out in China. And since most of the guests from Season 01 were based in Shanghai, this gives us a chance to alienate not just those of you listening outside of China, but even within China who are based elsewhere. What a great idea this was.

[Clips]

PG: Thank you very much.

MZ: Thank you.

EO: Thank you so much.

AP: Thank you too.

JL:  Thank you very much.

GL: Thank you.

MZ: Thank you again.

VV: Thank you so much.

NS: Great, thank you.

LL: My pleasure too.

SD: Thank you very much.

YF: Thank you.

NY: Thank you.

EM: Thank you.

SY: Thank you so much.

NS: Thank you for having me.

SM: Awesome, thank you.

AW: Thank you.

SDM: Thank you.

LC: Thanks for having me.

YY: Thank you for having me.

RC: Thank you so much for having me.

GN: Thank you for having me.

GC: Thank you

TB: Thank you very much.

SC: Thank you.

AD: Great to see you too.

LT: Thank you so much.

SB: Thanks.

OC: Thank you.

See here for a full list of transcripts