[Every country has its toolshed inventors. But China — which gave the world movable type printing, gunpowder and the compass — has spawned a population of tinkerers who display the kind of outsize ambition that has helped the country become a global economic giant.]
By
Anna Fifield
 |
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Geng Shuai, a social
media star for comic videos demonstrating his offbeat inventions,
stands in his workshop in
the village of Yang, in China.
(Yan Cong/for The
Washington Post)
|
His fans call him “The Useless Edison.” But
inventor Geng Shuai doesn’t mind. In fact, he kind of likes it.
“People say my inventions are useless, but I
think there are two dimensions to usefulness: practicality and amusement,” said
the 30-year-old former welder, who left his job last year to focus full time on
making his questionable contraptions, such as a motorbike with its own toilet.
“I like doing this. So it’s useful.”
Every country has its toolshed inventors. But
China — which gave the world movable type printing, gunpowder and the compass —
has spawned a population of tinkerers who display the kind of outsize ambition
that has helped the country become a global economic giant.
There’s a surprisingly large subset of
farmers and other DIY devotees who have built submarines and light aircraft,
various kinds of robotic plows and monster truck-style tractors.
Geng may now be the best-known among them — a
new kind of social media star whose calling card is his quirkiness.
Standing in his workshop in this tiny village
outside Beijing, Geng shows off his inventions. There’s the meat cleaver turned
hair comb. And there’s a tennis racket-size watermelon-slicer.
There’s the earthquake-proof noodle bowl that
swings in its stand to allow the eater to continue slurping through seismic
waves. There are the slippers made from metal nuts.
But Geng is most proud of his hammer bag.
It’s a hollow steel mallet with a compartment that slides out of the head.
Perfect, he says, for storing your phone, keys and wallet. It has a strap so it
can hang over the wearer’s shoulder.
“It’s very fashionable,” he said, with
apparent seriousness, modeling his creation. “And if someone tries to steal
your bag, you can just throw it at them.”
But Geng, who grew up making things in his
family’s pump factory, is a special kind of Chinese entrepreneur. He does not
make money from his inventions.
Well, not directly.
He makes a living through inadvertently
hilarious videos — filmed with the Chinese beauty filters that make everyone
look like an airbrushed star — in which he shows how he makes his inventions
and then hams it up for the camera as he demonstrates how to use them.
With smoldering eyes, he combs his messy hair
with the meat cleaver. He falls out of the slippers while trying to walk down a
country road in them. And he presents a motorbike with a seat that lifts up to
reveal a squat toilet. Just turn the throttle to flush. (Luckily the video cuts
out before Geng unzips his fly.)
He now has almost 2 million followers on the
video site Kwai, and they give him mobile phone “tips” for his performances —
the Internet equivalent of a busker getting cash dropped in a hat. His biggest
tippers get their names on plaques on the wall in his workshop, which is often
the set for his videos. The bigger the tip, the bigger the plaque.
Geng tries to come up with a new invention
every week and to make videos two or three times a week. He makes about $150
every time he does a live-streamed broadcast — decent money in a town where
five people can have a lavish lunch for a total of $25. He makes enough to
support his family — he and his wife have two children — and his brother, who
shoots the videos.
“Most people think I’m an entertainer, but I
think of myself as an inventor,” he said, naming as his hero the eccentric
Serbian American inventor Nikola Tesla.
Geng attributes his fame to China’s rapid
industrialization, which has seen millions of people migrate from rural regions
to small apartments in the big cities, where they work long days.
“Chinese people love inventions and inventing
stuff, but because of economic development, most people don’t have the time to
do it,” he said. “That’s why I am popular — they watch me making things because
they can’t make things themselves.”
It’s a similar phenomenon to the “live
eating” videos that started in South Korea and are now popular in China.
Internet stars eat in front of the camera, often so viewers can eat with them
and not feel alone.
Once, a fan who was living particularly
vicariously through Geng’s videos sent him $720. Which is lucky, because he
wouldn’t make much if he had to rely on sales.
When he first quit “boring” construction work
to follow his passion, he started making slingshots out of metal nuts soldered
together. He offered them for sale on WeChat, the ubiquitous Chinese social
media app, for about $10. He sold two or three.
No one wanted his water pipe that supposedly
filtered toxins out of cigarettes. But the metal nut cannon, which shoots
rubber bands, has been one of his bestsellers. He’s sold four.
Geng’s most popular product is the meat
cleaver smartphone case, which he makes to order depending on the customer’s
phone. He walks around with a meat cleaver handle sticking out of his own
pocket, which he grabs to whip out his phone as needed. So practical. He’s sold
10.
But it’s the videos that have catapulted him
to success.
“People might not want to buy my inventions,
but they like watching my videos, so they support me by tipping,” he said.
His family didn’t quite share his passion.
Geng’s wife, Ji Xiangying, was initially against his decision to throw in his
steady job for a fickle life of Internet renown.
“But I came to accept it after seeing how
many people like his inventions,” she said, holding their baby, the younger of
their two children, on her hip.
And when Geng told his grandma that he had
garnered more than 1 million fans online, she asked how he could possibly eat
that much. The phrase in Chinese sounds a lot like “one million bowls of rice
noodles.”
Now, his fans are encouraging him to push the
boundaries. Some threaten to stop following him if he dares make anything that
is actually practical.
“I realized that my small inventions can’t
satisfy you anymore, so I spent a lot of money to buy this motorcycle,” Geng
said into the camera in one of his recent videos. “This time, I’m going to make
something really useful.”
Cut to the next shot and there’s Geng with a
wheelbarrow with half a motorbike on the back. A motorbarrow. He proceeds to
tear around a warehouse with it, barely able to control the contraption which,
fortunately, is empty for the filming.
For Geng, the lack of sales is neither here
nor there. It’s the online celebrity that is motivating him. After all, before
it was only his family and friends who laughed at his inventions. Now he’s got
almost 2 million people laughing at him.
Luna Lin contributed to this report.
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