With bright blue eyes, fair skin and bushy brown hair, Peter Petrov doesn't look like a typical Chinese man. That's because Petrov, whose legal name is Dong Desheng, lives in his birthplace of Heilongjiang province and is an ethnic Russian, one of China's 55 officially recognized minority groups.
In a country where the predominant ethnic group, Han Chinese, accounts for 92% of the population -- or 1.2 billion people -- Petrov, 44, says his appearance and heritage makes him stand out. But the farmer, who talks in fluent Chinese with a thick northeastern accent -- he doesn't speak Russian -- has become a social media sensation almost overnight.
In a country where the predominant ethnic group, Han Chinese, accounts for 92% of the population -- or 1.2 billion people -- Petrov, 44, says his appearance and heritage makes him stand out. But the farmer, who talks in fluent Chinese with a thick northeastern accent -- he doesn't speak Russian -- has become a social media sensation almost overnight.
