Riyadh: Known to thousands simply as Falafel in Hotpot, Xuling, a Chinese/Arabic content creator, has built a unique platform connecting two of the world’s oldest civilizations — those of China and Saudi Arabia. Through language, culture, and everyday experiences, she shares a fresh perspective on what they have in common and why she believes the future of their relationship extends far beyond business.
“It’s been a great honor, and I’m so glad that people are really enjoying my content and channel at this moment in Saudi Arabia,” she said.
She had always been passionate about the Middle East and, recently, she began publishing content in Arabic to expand her audience and interact more with people from the region.
“I started out just, like, learning so much about the Middle East, the history, the culture, everything in the region, and I have been living in the region for a few years now as well. And I see this as my second home after China,” she said.
As more people from around the world began engaging with her content, she realized that her propensity for languages and affinity for Arab cultures had allowed her to corner a niche: “I narrowed it to only speaking Arabic and Chinese and English, you know, like, for introductions to people and the reason why I chose this name ‘Falafel in Hotpot’ is also a good bridge because falafel is Arabic food and hotpot is Chinese food.”
The Chinese content creator’s first visit to Saudi Arabia was in 2019, when she came to the Kingdom as a tourist. “The second time I came was actually at the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024. I came here on a business trip. I was working in a fintech company, and I came here and I just realized how drastically Saudi Arabia has changed.”
She was astonished by the progress driven by Saudi Vision 2030. When she first came to Diriyah, it was “like nothing was there. It was, like, completely a different city at the time,” she said, while now, “so much is happening.”
She described Saudi Arabia as booming with opportunities, with people eager to experience the new and the different. “People are just super interested about China and Chinese culture these days as well. And I do see that for people here, they absorb new things very quickly, and that’s what made me want to come back after that trip.”
Not many people are familiar with Saudi and Chinese cultures, the content creator said, and the two may seem, on the surface, to have little in common.
“The way the people dress, the way people look, the language we speak, the food we eat, the educational system, the culture everything looks so different, right,” she said.
When a person dives deep into both cultures, however, they realize that they share many similarities.
“In my content, I actually do the comparison between Chinese and Saudi cultures a lot, right. Like, for example, the way people do business and the way people communicate with their families, they … prioritize their families,” she said.
Xuling’s journey in learning Arabic began purely by accident. “I never planned on learning Arabic on purpose. So, I did my bachelor’s in Russia and when I was studying there, I … studied international relations. But at some point, we need to choose a region to focus on.”
She chose Arabic for a simple reason: “The language looks really cool after Chinese … I thought it was challenging and I wanted to learn.”
Xuling encourages anyone who has a dream to jump right in: “In Chinese we have a saying, we say ‘Xian shang che zai tiaozheng fangxiangpan,’ which literally means to get in the car first and then adjust your steering wheel second. So, it doesn’t matter how you start out, you know, you might start out in a very bad way. You might start out in a way that you didn’t expect.”
