30/01/2026
🇨🇳🇧🇪 An exciting evening full of connection, stories and insight!😊✨
🌏 On January 16th, the China Cultural Center in Brussels hosted the "This is Shanghai: My Shanghai Story" lecture, with speaker Tobias Le Compte, a Belgian musician.
🏙️Tobias shared with the audience the story of how he fell in love with the city of Shanghai, from when he first arrived there in 2008 to today.
🎼 A musician by trade, Tobias has gained popularity on social media for something else entirely: in 2021, when he started learning the Shanghainese dialect, he decided to film and upload shorform videos to keep track of his progress. His account, "Laowai Tobias", now has nearly 300,000 followers!
🎭Today, Tobias is active in Shanghai's performing arts and cultural tourism exchange activities. He recently even took to the stage in the Shanghai comic opera, "Today's Name is Shanghai". His dream is to become the first foreigner to bring a Shanghainese language programme to the CCTV Spring Festival Gala.
💝"My love for China and for Shanghai isn't just because of the food," Tobias says. "It's also rooted in the richness of the culture, the friendliness of the locals, how safe I feel there, and how convenient everything is. No matter how busy they are, Chinese people will always offer their help and care to family and friends, and that has changed me in many ways."
