Learn All of Beijing's "Dirty Dating Secrets" With This Hilarious New Web Series

If you’re a Beijing expat and reality TV is your guilty pleasure, then here’s a YouTube series for you.

That’s right, expats in the capital no longer need to treat their Keeping Up With the Kardashians and The Real Housewives of Atlanta downloads like a trash TV fix that doubles as a taste of home. That’s because the new online series Hey Pengyou! slyly spoofs those reality TV hits while also addressing some of the juiciest aspects of expat life in Beijing.

The series is created Keely Stanley (pictured above), an expat from Texas who has 16 years of experience as a producer for TV networks like CGTN in China and NBC, along with helming short films and documentaries, one of which landed in the prestigious Cannes Film Festival.

She also stars in one of the first episodes in the series, and she also hosted a premiere bash at Q Bar where the clip was screened a few weeks back. Titled “Beijing Dirty Dating Secrets,” the eight-minute clip features Keely and her pengyous partying at her apartment, a handful of brief music montages, Fake Pepsi Blue ads (“it’s like drinking diamonds!”) and, of course, some deep delving into anecdotes about courtship in the capital.

Don’t worry though, the entire series doesn’t revolve around salaciousness (though there’s enough there to draw average reality TV fans in, to be sure). This particular episode also offers up snippets of conversation about office dynamics in China (from contending with getting paid late, to the greater trials of dealing with upper management in the Middle Kingdom).

More than just unscripted snippets, Hey Pengyou! is a great way to laugh at reality TV tropes, hear some no-nonsense talk from expats navigating their way through life in Beijing, and to just enjoy some upbeat entertainment. Hey, at least it’s more relevant and meaningful than whatever Kim and Kylie argued about on the latest Keeping Up With ... episode (or so we’ve heard, ahem).

Stanley tells the Beijinger that the web series' title was inspired by "how I start all my WeChat voice messages with 'Hey pengyou!'" She goes on to tell us about infusing the web series with her personality: "I enjoy hanging out, living out loud and to the fullest, and not focusing on what other people are saying about you, just focusing on how you can live your best life."

She wants future episode to make use of "new locations in Beijing so that we can explore how to have fun again. Because I went through a stage recently where many of my friends left Beijing. So one of the main ideas of the series is: we need to find the fun again!"

Get in on the good times by visiting the Hey Pengyou! YouTube page where you can subscribe and see the latest clips. More recent follow-up episodes to the "Beijing Dirty Dating Secrets," clip include this new segment about making your dreams come true and another about participating in the Color Run.

Photos courtesy of Keely Stanley