Afu Thomas

Thomas Derksen (born 26 October 1988[1]), known as "Afu" Thomas (Chinese: 阿福Thomas), is a German sexpat and internet celebrity active in China.

He was born in Gummersbach, North Rhine-Westphalia and had five siblings.[1] His hometown is Marienheide, in the same state.[2] A student at Engelbert-von-Berg-Gymnasium Wipperfürth, he took Chinese for two years there and did a student exchange trip to China in 2007, his first time in the country. After briefly working in banking at Kreissparkasse Köln he studied at Ruhr University Bochum, taking courses about business and Chinese. From 2013 to 2014, he attended Fudan University,[1] and has lived in Shanghai since 2016.[2] He is fluent in Mandarin and has been learning the Shanghainese dialect.[3]

His videos depict his experiences in Shanghai.[2] His wife and two employees help Derksen manage his social media profile,[4] including Bilibili,[2] Meipai, Tencent QQ, and Sina Weibo.[4] He has expressed an interest in the Chinese e-commerce model,[5] writing a letter in 2017 to German Chancellor Angela Merkel on how Germany could follow China in its cashless payment system.[6][7] On June 2019, he was reported to have 15 million fans in the country.[8]

On February 2020, he uploaded a video interview with German virologist Rolf Hilgenfeld (de) who was in China at the time to assist with the COVID-19 situation; the video garnered more than 3.2 million views on Bilibili. He later followed with a video (where he spoke English instead of Chinese or German) titled "Fight the Virus not China".[9][10][11]